*QL-ED*: Roger Doughty: queer asylum advocate (Cal Law Profile)

[Ron Buckmire <ron@abacus.oxy.edu>]

© The Recorder, Monday, January 26, 1998 
(www.callaw.com/stories/edt0126e.html)

Lawyers Offer Help to Gay Political Refugees
By Rinat Fried 

One of Roger Doughty's first gay political asylum cases began in 1996, when he
agreed to represent an Iranian man who claimed he risked death in his native
country if his sexual orientation were made public. 

"What he had experienced there was a life in which he was unable to express
himself in any way because the repression in Iran against gay people is nearly
total," says the Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe associate. 

"And it is extremely dangerous for anybody to manifest any sexual orientation
that doesn't hew to the regime's norm, which is a heterosexual one." 

For Doughty, the plight of gay and lesbian refugees seeking a safe haven in
the United States has become a passionate cause. 

Although there is by now well-established law permitting immigrants to apply
for asylum based on sexual orientation, immigration officials hardly rubber
stamp such cases. Applicants must testify convincingly that they have suffered
or believe they are likely to suffer persecution because of their sexual
orientation. In addition, their lawyers must provide documentation of a
pattern of severe anti-gay discrimination and abuse in the applicant's native
country. 

"Asylum is not all that easy," Doughty says. "It goes to being able to
distinguish harassment from persecution." 

And things are about to get tougher. Legislation set to kick in April 1
requires refugees to apply for asylum within a year of their arrival in the
U.S. Immigrant advocates say this section of the Illegal Immigration Reform
and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 will punish many deserving aliens for
simply failing to know their rights. 

In response to the looming deadline, Doughty and Sharon Dulberg, an
immigration attorney at McVey & Mullery, have formed a lawyer training and
community outreach program. 

With assistance from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, Heller Ehrman and
the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Doughty and Dulberg
set up training sessions to teach interested lawyers how to handle gay
political cases. 

In the past year, Dulberg and Doughty have provided training to some 50
lawyers, while several dozen gay and lesbian immigrants have availed
themselves of the program's services. 

"We knew that the number of people aware of that [April 1] deadline was very
limited," says Doughty, "and that the number of attorneys who were experienced
in providing assistance was very, very limited, especially attorneys who were
willing to do the work pro bono." 

In his three years at Heller Doughty has spent about half of his time on pro
bono matters. 

To date Doughty has personally handled three asylum cases and supervised about
10. Among those, two have been granted asylum while the remainder, including
the case with the Iranian man, are still pending. Dulberg, meanwhile, has
handled about 20 cases, winning asylum for more than a dozen gays and lesbians
from countries such as China, Mexico and Venezuela. 


---
RON BUCKMIRE                                    http://www.math.oxy.edu/~ron/
Asst. Prof., Math Dept., Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road, L.A., CA 90041
ron@abacus.oxy.edu||+1 213 259 2536 (v)||+1 213 259 2958 (f)||GORE-BOXER 2000
Fighting for the <A HREF="http://www.freedomtomarry.org/>Freedom To Marry</a> 



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