Political Asylum Spreadsheet Introduction
Thanks to Natasha Merz, Clinical Law Fellow at the University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis
This spreadsheet is designed to serve as reference material for practitioners researching political asylum cases brought on behalf of Haitian refugees. The chart is set up as an Excel spreadsheet. The cases are organized by date, with the most recent cases appearing at the top. For each case, I have tried to summarize the main issues or points of law. For each case, the issue, or question, is stated in the “issue 1,” “issue 2,” and “issue 3” column headers. The point of law or holding that corresponds to the issue is expressed in the “holding” column headers (holding 1 corresponds to issue 1, etc.). If you prefer to search by issues or keywords rather than date or jurisdiction, you can utilize the “find” function in Excel (located under the “edit” bar). Please note that as of May 11, 2007, this chart is incomplete. I plan to continue compiling cases and updating the chart over time. If you plan to rely on or cite a case appearing in this chart, you should, of course, read the case yourself. Comments and suggestions to improve the chart are welcome. You can reach me at nmmerz@stthomas.edu.