New Country of Origin Research Materials for U.S Asylum Attorneys

Temple University Beasley School of Law‘s Sheller Center for Social Justice and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) are publishing a new series of Annotated Table of Contents (ATOCs) for attorneys supporting asylum claims in the United States. Our ongoing asylum project, launched in 2018 provides expert research for attorneys to bolster their arguments about country conditions and strengthen their client’s claims of dire need to seek protection in the United States. The last series was published in February 2023.  

This new set of ATOCs are tailored to Ecuador and Nicaragua, with updated information on the complex conditions in these countries. This includes persecution by criminal groups, internal relocation, and state complicity in Ecuador (the government’s inability or unwillingness to protect an asylum seeker from harm at the hands of a private/non-state actor) as well as LGBTQ+ asylum claims in Nicaragua. Information on risks faced by human rights defenders in El Salvador, and the recruitment of children by gangs in Honduras was also updated. Materials on state complicity in Guatemala and Honduras will be published later this summer.

These new Annotated Table of Contents are launched during an ongoing state of emergency in Ecuador, initially declared by President Noboa early this year, in response to a coordinated series of violent attacks by criminal groups on January 9. In just three years, Ecuador’s homicide rates have multiplied sixfold. The dramatic uptick in violence in the country has led to significant increases in forced migration; Ecuadorians continue to consistently appear as one of the top nationalities encountered at the U.S.-Mexican border.

While Nicaraguans are one of the nationalities that can request humanitarian parole in the United States, which is largely temporary and conditional, many continue to seek asylum in the United States given repression and persecution in Nicaragua, making updated information on country conditions essential for asylum attorneys. 

As the U.S. government continues to seek to restrict access to asylum at the border, the reasons people are forced to flee their countries persist or worsen. It is now more important than ever to support asylum attorneys representing asylum seekers, equipping them with the necessary tools to ensure that people in need of protection have access to a fair and accurately informed process.

As contexts shift, WOLA and Temple Law will continue to provide additional materials and update existing material. 

Past resources that supplement the series include:

• Risks faced by human rights defenders and journalists
• Domestic violence and gender-based harms and persecution of members of LGBTQ+ community
• Inability to internally relocate
• Extortion of small business owners
• Children fleeing recruitment by gangs in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador
• Persecution of Indigenous peoples in Honduras and Guatemala
• The situation facing human rights defenders and journalists in Mexico, among others

To access these materials, please visit Temple Law’s Sheller Center for Social Justice’s password protected website and fill out this form to receive the password.