Asylum and Immigration
In 2025, Jenner & Block secured asylum, green cards, and citizenship for clients who had waited years—some more than a decade—for safety and permanence in the United States.
AsylumAsylum Granted for Afghan Family After More Than 13 Years of Advocacy
After more than 13 years of advocacy, Jenner & Block successfully secured asylum for pro bono client Asad Mangal and his family, bringing safety and stability to a family that has endured appalling hardship.
In 2008, Asad was kidnapped in Afghanistan by the Taliban while driving American journalist David Rohde to an interview in Afghanistan. He endured eight months of captivity—including beatings and continuous death threats—until he was able to escape. Yet even after he returned to Kabul, Asad and his family lived under constant threat of violence and, in 2016, the Taliban caused grave harm to his family members.
Jenner began representing Asad Mangal in 2012 and secured his family’s arrival in the US in 2017, though asylum remained out of reach for seven additional years. On September 29, 2025, Asad and his family finally received the news they had waited so long to hear: the granting of asylum in the United States of America.
The team included Associate Amit Patel, Department Counsel Edward P. McKenna, and Partner Laura MacDonald, supervised by former Co-Managing Partner Katya Jestin and New York Office Managing Partner Tony Barkow—among many other team members over the years.
AsylumSecuring a Safer Future for a Venezuelan Family
Jaime Jose Hernandez had served in Venezuela’s Presidential Honor Guard for over a decade. He was not a dissident. He did not organize against the government. He was, by every measure, a loyal public servant until the regime decided to turn its back on due process and respect for human rights.
In 2016, after returning from a delayed honeymoon in Curaçao with his wife, Genesis, Jaime was summoned by Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency, the Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar (DGCIM). The agency had determined, without evidence, that his travel meant he had met with political opponents. During the interrogation that followed, officers beat him and attempted to suffocate him. Afterwards, the punishment continued in a different form: for the next eleven weeks, Jaime was ordered to report to agency headquarters every morning and sit there until nightfall, sleeping in his car or in motels, hours from home. He was released only after signing documents promising silence about the government for ten years.
Three years later, in April 2019, the agency came for him again. Officers arrived at his home before dawn, masked and armed. Jaime was taken away, beaten, and told he would be killed. Jaime came home to his family from the rural roadside where the DGCIM had abandoned him and made a choice no family should ever have to make: to flee from the only country they had ever known to keep their family safe. On July 20, 2019, Jaime, Genesis, and their two-year-old daughter Leia fled through Colombia and Mexico and presented themselves at the United States border to request asylum.
NIJC referred the family to Jenner & Block in 2020, and the firm took on the case pro bono. The team documented the Venezuelan government’s systematic persecution of military members suspected of opposing the Maduro regime, established Jaime’s credibility as a witness, and built a merits brief arguing that the torture he endured and the threats made against his family constituted past persecution under United States asylum law.
On July 11, 2025, after years of living in fear, Jenner & Block secured asylum for Jaime and his family. Now settled in Mishawaka, Indiana, the rhythms of daily life have replaced the fear that once defined every decision Jaime and Genesis made. Jaime is in his final year of a millwright apprenticeship and enjoys playing soccer and softball on weekends. Leia is growing up with the stability her parents crossed three countries to give her. Though the Venezuelan government took years from this family, Jenner & Block and NIJC helped them reclaim what came next.
The dedicated Jenner & Block team that supported this matter includes Partners Wade Thomson, Megan Poetzel, and Hope Tone-O’Keefe, Associate Michael Pearson, and former associates Meg Hlousek and Nathaniel Schetter, alongside their partnership with the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC).
AsylumHelping Persecuted Sri Lankan Family Gain Asylum
After more than a decade, Jenner & Block secured asylum for a Sri Lankan humanitarian relief worker, his wife, and their son—delivering safety, and stability to a family that spent years living under the shadow of persecution.
Our client was born in 1982, just months before a devastating civil war erupted between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). He spent his childhood witnessing war crimes and living in refugee camps. Rather than turning away from that suffering, he faced it head on. In 2007, he joined an NGO involved in disaster relief efforts including the response to the catastrophic 2004 tsunami that claimed an estimated 35,000 lives. When the civil war ended in 2009, our client oversaw an after-school program for children near Menik Farm, Sri Lanka’s largest and most notorious detention camp for internally displaced people, while also serving as a pastor in his local church. In 2011, he co-founded a nonprofit dedicated to ethnic reconciliation.
While his humanitarian work earned international recognition, it also made him a target of Sri Lankan security forces. In 2014, he was falsely accused of LTTE membership and of spying for the United States. Over four harrowing weeks, the threats escalated, culminating in plainclothes security troops entering his home at night and holding him at gunpoint in front of his two-year-old son and pregnant wife. Soon afterward, he fled into hiding and contacted the US Embassy in Colombo, which granted humanitarian parole to his family. They escaped first to India, then to the United States.
Referred by Human Rights First, the Jenner team, led by Partner Michele Slachetka, Special Counsel Andrew Csoros, and Associate Rachel Magaziner, and former colleagues Timothy Barron, Samantha Swartz, Giselle Safazadeh, and Peter Hanna, filed asylum applications and spent nine years navigating the procedural complexities of the immigration system amid changing circumstances. In December 2024, their perseverance paid off: asylum was granted for the entire family.
Today, our client and his wife work for the Red Cross, are active in their Wisconsin community, and are raising their growing family in the country that gave them refuge. Their story is a testament to what pro bono work can do: not just winning a case but changing lives for the better.
ADJUSTMENT OF STATUs and citizenshipYears of Advocacy for Trafficking Survivor Leads to Green Card Approval
After years of dedicated pro bono work, a Jenner & Block team helped our pro bono client, a survivor of human trafficking, secure lawful permanent US residence.
The client, referred through the Human Trafficking Legal Center in 2018, was guided by our team through the T-Visa process and advised throughout her cooperation with the prosecution of her trafficker. Most recently, the team successfully navigated her adjustment of status petition, which was granted by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in August 2025.
The team included Partners Rachel Alpert and Sam Feder, Special Counsel Alex Langlinais, Associate Christian Hatten, Paralegal Adam Weidman, former Partner Cynthia Robertson, former Associates Illyana Green, Jonathan Langlinais, and Eric Petry, and former Paralegal Grace Liberman.
ADJUSTMENT OF STATUs and citizenshipSuccessful Naturalization for SIJS Client
A Jenner & Block team successfully represented a long-standing pro bono client through a naturalization process that resulted in approved US citizenship. The firm initially assisted the client in obtaining a green card through a Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJS) application and continued to support her quest to become a US citizen.
The Jenner team guided the client throughout the naturalization application process, coordinated ASL interpretation services, and represented her at a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) interview where her request for citizenship was ultimately granted.
The Jenner team included Partner Michael Ross and former associate Lulu Zhang.
HABEASJenner & Block Secures Immediate Release and Critical Protections for Green-Card Applicant
Jenner & Block successfully represented Serigne Awa Balla Diop, a nineteen-year-old green-card applicant from Senegal whom ICE unlawfully detained during a generalized enforcement action in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Working in partnership with Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), our firm achieved an extraordinary result: the Court ordered Serigne’s immediate release and provided critical protections against his rearrest.
Serigne entered the United States as an unaccompanied child in 2023. He moved to New York and lived there without incident while he worked and pursued a green card. On October 21, 2025, Serigne happened to be sitting in a parked car near an ICE raid targeting West African street vendors on Canal Street. Though he was not a target of the raid, ICE officers summarily arrested Serigne, immediately sent him to a detention facility in New Jersey, and later transported him to a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana. Serigne was held there for nearly 70 days as Jenner fought for his release.
On December 29, in a remarkably swift decision, the US District Court for the District of New Jersey granted the petition for a writ of habeas corpus that Jenner filed on Serigne’s behalf. The Court ordered Serigne’s immediate release from detention, permanently enjoined the government from re-arresting him under the statute the government had initially invoked, and retained jurisdiction over Sergine’s case if he is ever re-detained. This outcome secured both individual freedom and lasting protection for our client.
San Francisco Office Managing Partner Reid Schar and Partner Matthew Klapper led the work, alongside Associates Dylan Madoff, Leila Hooshyar, and Amber Gibson, in partnership with Wendy Wylegala and Halina Schiffman-Shilo from KIND.
HABEASPro Bono Client Released Following Habeas Win
In July, a pro bono client was released after nearly two years of unlawful prolonged detention by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”).
After fleeing political persecution in Russia, our client was detained by ICE in September 2023 without explanation. Despite multiple denied bond requests, the Jenner team secured his release and reunification with his family through a successful habeas corpus petition arguing that his prolonged detention violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights.
The Jenner team included Associate Chloe Law, former Partner An Tran, and former Associate Lilly McGuire, with support from our partnering organization, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, who had referred the case to the firm.