By Ms. Shaun Watchie Perry
I spent over 40 years practicing law, primarily in the transactional world. At the beginning of my career, I was a deputy prosecutor; however, trial work is a distant memory. My courtroom experience in recent years has involved stipulated orders and quiet, procedural hearings.
Still, as immigration enforcement toughened and the human toll grew harder to ignore, I felt a keen moral responsibility to act. I believe in due process. I believe in the oath we take as lawyers.¹ And so, before I contemplated retirement, I accepted my first pro bono asylum case, working with a local immigration rights legal project. I take seriously my duty to offer pro bono services under RPC 6.1.2
A Client in Detention, With Everything at Stake
My client was fleeing persecution in his African home country solely because of his sexual orientation. He had been violently attacked, and an LGBTQ+ family member had been killed. Other LGBTQ+ individuals in his community had also been murdered. He feared for his life. He had been arrested at the U.S./Canadian border and detained.
Before I met him, another attorney represented him and filed an inaccurate asylum application with factual errors, omissions, and unverified legal conclusions, while also failing to prepare for the final hearing. My client, unfamiliar with U.S. immigration procedures, was pressured by this attorney to sign a blank asylum application, with assurances that it contained all the correct information. When my client later discovered the inaccuracies, he felt betrayed and trapped.
By the time I appeared in the case, my client had spent over one year in detention. I had barely seven weeks to construct the case and prepare for the final hearing. I received some support from the local immigration rights project, but I was ultimately responsible. I never felt so limited working as a solo practitioner.
Learning the Reality Behind “Just Take One Case”
I quickly understood that noble intentions are no substitute for preparation in immigration court. I spent over 100 hours:
- Researching asylum law, detailing credible fear conditions, briefing ineffective assistance of counsel arguments, and trying to understand the inherent biases of the U.S. immigration system;
- Reconstructing the factual record and correcting previous counsel’s mistakes;
- Obtaining expert medical and psychological evaluations;
- Gathering supporting declarations;
- Collecting country-conditions evidence from authoritative human rights sources and State Department records;
- Preparing my client for testimony with sensitivity and care.
Witnesses in my client’s home country feared retaliation, and obtaining statements proved difficult. Detention conditions made communication slow. Yet, we still built what I believed was a robust record.
Inside the Courtroom
At the final hearing, the court focused almost exclusively on the discrepancies between the flawed initial filing and the corrected record that was presented. My client explained that he had been asked to sign the earlier application without reviewing it. Instead of considering this as a question of ineffective assistance of counsel and keeping an open mind about the circumstances, the court characterized it as proof that my client was either “lying then or lying now.”
Expert reports, death documentation, and country condition evidence received little attention. Attempts to explain discrepancies in police reports due to trauma or cultural barriers were disregarded. Disclosures of past trauma faced skepticism, and key evidence — including medical records and witness statements — was dismissed or ignored by the judge. He treated my client disrespectfully.
At the end of the hearing, the judge denied all relief, stating flatly that he did not believe my client and did not find my client credible.
Independent Confirmation of Concern
After the hearing, an eyewitness to the hearing wrote to my client, expressing their dismay and shock when the judge began the hearing by demanding:
“Are you lying now, or were you lying then?” — a question that set a tone of disbelief from the outset. … [The judge] took over the case; while the government attorney sat back. … [The judge] would scoff at explanations, roll his eyes, and ignore documents and expert reports. … [The judge] appeared to view [my client with] outright disdain, and spoke to him like he was already guilty of lying before he even opened his mouth. … [T]he judge appeared to have “made up his mind before testimony even began, dismissing trauma evidence, death records, and corroborating expert evaluations. … [N]othing you or your attorney said would make a difference.”3
Systemic Pressures: Pretermission and Predisposition
During case preparation, I came across a new internal policy memorandum from the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which directs judges to pretermit and deny asylum claims deemed legally insufficient without a hearing. The Memorandum reminded the judges of the 4 million-case backlog and directed them they “take” steps to immediately dispose of cases lacking a “viable legal path,” even without live testimony.4
For a system where credibility, cultural context, and trauma should be the core elements of an asylum claim, this memorandum signaled a dramatic shift toward denial and cynicism, rather than careful, individualized adjudication. It overturns everything I had long trusted; testimony is a fundamental part of justice, not an optional step. I do not claim that this memorandum was the sole reason for the outcome in my client’s case. However, I do believe it reflects the current immigration system, which devalues the voices of vulnerable applicants and promotes skepticism as the default stance.
The Emotional Weight
Leaving that courtroom, I felt something I hadn’t expected: deep disheartenment and disillusionment. It is one thing to lose a case in a fair contest of law and fact. It is another to stand in a courtroom where the outcome seems predetermined; where it feels as though the system is not merely overwhelmed but increasingly biased against the very individuals it is meant to protect. This trial did not seem like a contest of evidence, or legal argument, or keeping an open mind regarding credibility; it felt like walking into a foregone conclusion.
I do not use this word lightly, but the experience had the unmistakable character of a “rigged” system without meaningful asylum protection. The judge’s posture, tone, and immediate presumption of deceit signaled that nothing I could say and nothing my client could prove would change the trajectory.
The Aftermath
Despite having strong grounds for an appeal and my advice to pursue it, my client chose not to do so. Continuing with the appeal would mean facing many more months in detention, with no guarantee of success. Even if the appeal were granted, the relief would likely be a new trial before the same judge. My client decided to waive the appeal and accept removal rather than endure further incarceration. This decision still haunts me, but it was his to make. Sadly, his best option was to surrender his asylum claim and take his chances back in his home country. It is a chilling indictment not of him, but of the system that failed him.
My client has filed a Bar Complaint against his first attorney. Maybe some justice will yet be served by trying to stop inept and negligent attorneys from representing vulnerable detained immigrants.
Why Do This Work?
A fair question remains: Why would any attorney willingly walk into a courtroom where the odds are steep, the emotional toll is heavy, and the possibility of losing — despite your best work — is real? Why volunteer to carry a case that may leave you exhausted, outraged, and questioning the system itself?
Because some people have no one else. Because due process only exists where advocates are willing to stand and insist upon it. Because our presence forces accountability, exposes injustice, and preserves the record for future correction. Because when systems fail silently, they fossilize.
Most importantly, even in cases that end painfully, the impact on a client’s life can be profound. Someone stood with them. Someone believed them. Someone affirmed that their story mattered and that they were worthy of dignity under the law.
Pro bono immigration advocacy is not only about winning cases — it is about insisting that the rule of law means something in the lives of the most vulnerable. It is about making invisible people visible again. It is about bearing witness and refusing to look away.
We do this work knowing it may cost us time, emotion, and comfort. But the alternative is to surrender justice to indifference and fear. And that is a far heavier defeat than any single courtroom loss.
Our legal system does not defend itself. Lawyers do. To my fellow attorneys, those who are young in practice and those nearing retirement: Take an immigration asylum case. Fight the fight. Imagine the impact if every practicing attorney in King County accepted just one pro bono immigration case!
Ms. Shaun Watchie Perry is a native Seattleite, admitted to the Bar in 1981, primarily practicing in real estate law. Semi-retired, she volunteers when she can on pro bono matters.
1 The Washington State Bar Oath states in part : “I […]do solemnly declare: … (2) I will support the Constitution of the State of Washington and the Constitution of the United States; … (9) I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed; (10) I will in all other respects conduct myself personally and professionally in conformity with the high standards of conduct imposed upon members of the Bar as conditions for the privilege to practice law in this State.”
2 RPC 6.1 PRO BONO PUBLICO SERVICE states in part that, “Every lawyer has a professional responsibility to assist in the provision of legal services to those unable to pay. A lawyer should aspire to render at least thirty (30) hours of pro bono publico service per year”. …
3 These are direct quotes taken from a handwritten letter to my client from an immigration advocate dated June 11, 2025 (names have been kept anonymous to protect the client and the immigration advocate).
4 EOIR Policy Memorandum PM 25-28, “Pretermission of Legally Insufficient Applications for Asylum,” issued by Sirce E. Owen, Acting Director, effective April 11, 2025.
