About The Dilley Pro Bono Project

The Dilley Pro Bono Project represents immigrant mothers and children as they seek asylum in the US. They partner with The Immigration Justice Campaign to increase access to legal counsel in detention centers neation-wide. My role throughout the week will be to interview the mothers about their reason for fleeing their home country in order to prepare them for their asylum interviews. The hope is that these women will receive a ‘positive’ to then be permitted to seek asylum when they get to their destination in the US.

Largely due to the implementation of the Safe Third Country Transit Bar The Dilley Pro Bono Project has seen a dramatic decrease in the rate of ‘positives’ being granted in the South Texas Family Detention Center. Before the Safe Third Country Transit Bar the rate of positives was 90%. Now, the rate of positives is 10%. In other words, people are not being given permission to seek asylum in the US, nor are they given the opportunity to share their stories. They are given a ‘negative’ and often deported back to the tumult and horror they fled.

On the surface, the protocol seems black and white: When traveling to the US from a country south of Mexico, first ask permission in the said country to seek asylum. What isn’t mentioned is the terror, torture and persecution asylum seekers face when making the arduous trek north. We cannot possibly understand the levels of corruption, greed and violence that transpires, yet our country declares policies and makes assumptions based on what we do not know, (what I hope none of us will ever know), first hand. 

The Safe Third Country Transit Bar is a petition and is currently in litigation. It is not a law and has not been passed by congress.