We seek to help refugees and asylum seekers in three basic ways:
We assist in finding legal representation and provide guidance throughout the entire asylum application process. ( Our founders have maintained a success rate of almost 100%. Though past experience is no guarantee of future result and every application involves individual unique circumstance )
We provide legal aid for issues unrelated to asylum. In addition to their legal status, refugees often confront problems related to work, divorce, child support, lawsuits, traffic infractions and fundamental cultural misunderstandings.
Finally, we work to connect asylum seekers with services, agencies, and other resources that might otherwise be unavailable to them because of language barriers.
We help families locate appropriate housing, effective ESL schools, and medical care.
We also help with the process of obtaining work permits.
Language Barrier
Most refugees arrive with little or no English language skills. To complicate matters further, immigrants coming from different regions of Tibet, and the Tibetan diaspora, speak only their local dialects.
Mistakes are often made when court-appointed translators can not understand the dialect being spoken by the asylum seeker.
Miscommunication between client and lawyer or judge can ruin an applicant’s chances of gaining asylum.
Tenzin Sampho is familiar in all different Tibetan dialects, as well as Mandarin. His years in India have also given him a basic command of Hindi.
Tenzin’s language skills also allow him to better orient refugees to the social norms and cultural nuances of urban America, which can be baffling and frustrating to new comers.