The Texas Lawbook Profiles Akin Gump Border Work in Asylum Cases

The Texas Lawbook has featured Akin Gump’s pro bono immigration work in the article “Akin Gump Increases Pro Bono Commitment for Border Cases.” The article highlights some of the work the firm is currently doing to help asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Senior practice attorney Eric Seitz, the article notes, is currently working with a 31-year-old Honduran father who is seeking asylum along with his teenaged sister, in order to flee murderous gangs. A federal judge in El Paso, Texas is due to decide whether the man should be granted his request or be deported back to his home country.

Seitz, whose practice ordinarily focuses on financial restructuring matters, said the experience “has truly enriched [his] practice of law.” He is one of nearly a dozen lawyers from the firm to spend time at immigration detention facilities near the border in recent weeks.

Pro bono counsel Lauren Connell said the firm got involved in these types of cases after being contacted for help by the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration. Several lawyers, she said “responded quickly that they would go.”

Seitz said he has made seven trips to the border in the past year, and while it was intimidating at first, “these people’s lives are literally hanging in the balance.”

Litigation partner Estela Díaz is representing another Honduran father who has been separated from his nine-year-old son for six months as well as a man from El Salvador who was separated from his 16-year-old son earlier this year.

“He brought his teenaged son here to keep him from being taken by Salvadoran gangs,” said Diaz. “His primary mission was to save his son. This is a miscarriage of justice.”