CGRS restricts access to our materials for a number of reasons:
- Deterring misuse. We want to ensure that our materials are only used by those working to protect the rights of immigrants, and are never misinterpreted or submitted incorrectly, resulting in undermining the rights of asylum seekers.
- Keeping our program free to use. CGRS provides all of our materials to all for free - however, our materials are costly to produce. We rely on grants and donations to make our work possible. We receive grants from a number of sources, all of which require us to track the use of our materials and report on our program.
Technical assistance (TA) materials are shared through the TA Library, a curated resource library available on CGRS's site for advocates representing individuals in asylum, withholding of removal, or Convention Against Torture (CAT) cases.
CGRS's TA resources are available free of charge and on-demand at any time on our website. You do not need to email CGRS to access materials - you can either fill out a case intake to access the TA Library for a new case, or navigate to your My Account dashboard to access assistance for a previously submitted case.
For detailed instructions on accessing TA, please review our TA program instructions, which provides step-by-step guidance on accessing the TA Library and Expert Witness Database.
If you are representing more than one client as principal applicants on separate I-589s, please submit individual requests for each applicant. Maintaining separate records allows us to track each case as it progresses, accurately monitor decision trends, and provide the most relevant resources. For more information, review our TA program policies.
If you are looking for materials for a case that already has a CGRS case number, please do not submit an additional case intake through our online portal. You can access updated assistance materials on-demand at any time in our TA Library. To access the TA Library for a previously-submitted case, click “View TA Library for this Case” on your My Account dashboard. More in-depth instructions for using the TA Library can be found here.
If you would like to request additional assistance beyond the resources provided in the TA Library, please email us at CGRS-TA@uclawsf.edu with your CGRS case number in the subject line, noting any urgent upcoming deadlines. Please note we are not able to accommodate all requests for further assistance due to capacity constraints.
To share a CGRS case (and the tailored TA Library associated with it), navigate to your My Account dashboard and click on the case number of the case you would like to share. On the case record page, click on the "Share Case" tab and enter the email addresses of any others working on the case, e.g., law clinic students, pro bono mentors, or co-counsel. Do not share a case with anyone who is not working with the applicant.
In order to access a shared case, the recipient will need to have an existing CGRS account. If they do not have an account at the time of sharing, you will get an error message. Once they have created an account, you will be able to share the account with their email.
Once a case has been shared with another CGRS user, they will see the case under the Cases Shared With Me section on their My Account dashboard. From there, they can access the TA Library associated with that case. Shared users are not able to add outcomes for cases shared with them. To remove a shared user from a case, please email us at CGRS-TA@uclawsf.edu to request removal.
If a case is being transferred to a different attorney than the one who submitted the original assistance request, please email us at CGRS-TA@uclawsf.edu with the CGRS case number in the subject line. We will need the email address connected to the CGRS account of the attorney to which the case is being transferred.
Yes, non-attorneys who are working on an individual asylum case may access the TA Library. When registering, select "Attorney/advocate representing a client."
If more details arise after you've already submitted a case intake, you can edit the case record to immediately update the TA Library with relevant materials. To edit, go to your My Account page and click Edit under the relevant case number. Once you have saved your changes, your TA Library will show any relevant new resources, if applicable.
The checkboxes in the left-hand sidebar of the TA Library enable users to filter and quickly find applicable resources. The filters are used to narrow the documents in your tailored resource library using “AND”, not “OR” logic. For example, if you would like to see country conditions research relating to your client’s country of origin AND a certain type of persecution, select the checkboxes for the country of origin, type of persecution, and “Country Conditions” in the Type of Document category. Once you click “Apply Filters”, the library will display all relevant results.
If you apply several filters and no results are returned, try applying fewer filters or no filters at all. If you are still not finding what you are looking for, then we may not have materials matching your search available at current. Please report any issues you encounter with the TA Library filters by filling out this feedback form.
Please be advised, the “Country of Origin” filter will only return expert declarations and country conditions resources if selected. Other materials, such as practice advisories, sample briefs, unpublished decisions, or filings, cannot be filtered by country.
Note that the “Procedural Stage” filters currently display briefs, decisions, and other litigation support materials related to proceedings at the Asylum Office, immigration court, Board of Immigration Appeals, and federal courts. This filter is helpful to search for general guidance related to asylum cases in these procedural stages. However, additional resources may be applicable to your case. If you are applying procedural stage filters but there are limited or no results, please remove some filters and try your search again.
For more in-depth explanation of our filters, please review our TA Library instructions or review our Strategies for Maximizing CGRS Technical Assistance in Asylum Cases webinar, available in the TA Library.
Due to the wide variation of cases for which we provide assistance, we are not able to provide country conditions resources for every country or type of fear-of-return claim - in 2022 alone, we received cases from 128 countries. Additionally, through our fact-finding projects and collaborations, our expertise is most focused on the Northern Central America region. While we endeavor to develop materials for other countries and types of claims, we are limited by staff capacity, constantly changing country conditions, and the complexity and variation between cases.
If resources related to your applicant’s specific country or claim are not included in the TA Library, we do not have additional materials on file at that time. Additionally, some of the materials may be outdated. We endeavor to update and add additional resources to the TA Library as we develop or receive them. Your tailored TA Library will automatically be updated with resources relevant to your case, so be sure to check the library for new materials. When we release new country conditions research, we announce it on our Program News page and in our TA user newsletters.
To help CGRS develop country conditions materials for more types of claims, support us by donating or submitting sample country conditions research from your cases.
No, the TA Library currently does not allow you to filter by date range. Resources are displayed in reverse chronological order by date of publication or most recent update. We endeavor to add this ability in the future.
CGRS endeavors to provide sample redacted briefs and decisions on claims relevant to your client's case. We share materials in similar types of claims, even if they are for cases different than your client's country of origin because the legal arguments presented may still be applicable.
The country of origin filter only displays country conditions reports and expert declarations relevant to your client’s country of origin. To view sample briefs and/or decisions, de-select the country of origin filter, and select the sample briefs and/or decisions checkboxes in the Type of Document filter category. These filters will show briefs and/or decisions from all countries.
It is imperative to provide as much information as possible in the case intake form, as the tailored TA Library is generated from the information inputted for a particular case. If you forgot to check something off on the case intake form, please email us at CGRS-TA@uclawsf.edu with the CGRS case number and what you would like to change so that we can update your CGRS case record. Once the case record is updated, relevant resources will automatically appear in that case’s customized library.
You are authorized to submit certain CGRS materials, such as universal declarations, only in cases for which you have requested technical assistance and have a CGRS case number. Do not submit country conditions toolkits or practice advisories, as they are provided as background information and guidance for practitioners and are not meant to be submitted as evidence or argument.
Please do not share materials with individuals working on different cases that have not been registered with CGRS. For funding and reporting purposes, CGRS does not permit the unauthorized distribution of our materials. To share resources with others working on the same case, add them as a shared user to the case by email address. For instructions on how to share cases, refer to the Accessing Technical Assistance Materials section of this page.
Unfortunately, we are not able to grant access to our database for research purposes. Please email us at CGRS-TA@uclawsf.edu regarding your research, and we will determine if we have relevant, non-confidential materials to support your research.
Individuals interesting in serving as expert witnesses can access CGRS's Expert Witness Resource Library,
Please fill out this form to report issues and provide feedback, or email us at CGRS-TA@uclawsf.edu.
CGRS endeavors to provide current country conditions resources for common countries of origin and types of persecution, but given our capacity as small non-profit organization, we are not able to provide this information for all cases. We recieve cases from more than 120 countries of origin regarding 30 different persecution types. Additionally, the majority of our cases are from 4 countries in Northern Central America, so we expend the majority of our limited capacity updating those resources.
Our ability to share free materials is made possible by donations and other support from our users. Donations help sustain our program and allow us to expand our resources. Additionally, we appreciate submissions of sample resources from attorneys who have used the materials in their cases. If you want to support our TA program and help us grow to support more cases, please submit any resources here. We're grateful for your contributions!
CGRS shares unpublished decisions through the TA Library. To quickly check whether a decision is in the TA LIbrary, enter the CGRS case number in the search box in the filter sidebar of the TA Library.
If you can't find the decision, then it has not been uploaded to the TA Library for one of the following reasons:
- The decision has not been fully redacted yet.
- The decision is not relevant to the case for which you are viewing the TA Library. For example, an unpublished decision from a religious persecution case will not appear for TA cases not related to religious persecution.
- We do not have permission from the original attorney to share the decision.
Tracking of case outcomes is a critical component of CGRS’s technical assistance program. CGRS maintains a database of over 60,000 asylum cases and collects case information including the facts, arguments made, identity of the adjudicator, outcome, and the rationale for the decision. This enables us to assist other attorneys with similar claims by providing information on how particular adjudicators have ruled and what evidence was persuasive. The information is also critical to informing our research, resource development, impact litigation, training, and policy advocacy efforts. Additionally, attorneys who reported outcomes provided and gave permission to share many of the sample briefs and decisions disseminated through our TA program.
To report an outcome in your asylum case, log into your CGRS account and go to the My Account page. On this page, you will see a list of all of your cases registered with CGRS. On the right side of each case, you will see a link to “Add an Outcome”. Click this link to add an outcome for that case. If your case has multiple outcomes, you can click on the link to “Add Another Outcome”.
No, CGRS no longer maintains a publicly accessible outcomes database due to capacity limitations. However, CGRS is planning to share aggregated, anonymized outcomes data again in the future. For confidentiality reasons, we do not grant access to the CGRS database. CGRS staff review and analyze case outcomes and share any relevant, non-confidential information to advocates through our trainings and practice advisories.
By uploading a decision document, CGRS can review the decision and identify any patterns or trends in the outcomes of asylum cases. This can help CGRS improve our TA program by providing more targeted resources and support to clients based on the issues and challenges they face.
In addition, uploading a decision document can help CGRS to identify cases where there may have been errors or inconsistencies in the decision-making process, which can inform its advocacy efforts to improve the fairness and accuracy of the asylum system.
No, CGRS is only interested in decision documents that contain individualized analysis. We understand that some judges issue only a generalized addendum of the law. There's no need to provide this to us.
We greatly value feedback from attorneys on their experiences with expert witnesses. We have changed our policy to allow CGRS to share feedback provided here with the expert to whom it pertains, advocates, and others. Please review our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The information we typically seek to share with experts is praise, constructive feedback, and findings made by the adjudicator, although there are circumstances when sharing other information is appropriate. Please indicate if you do NOT want CGRS to share your expert feedback by emailing us at CGRS-ExpertDB@uclawsf.edu or noting that you’d like to information provided to be kept confidential in the Additional Information field on the outcome.
Yes, you should check with your client for permission before sharing any case documents, briefing, or other materials. If you do not obtain permission, we do ask that you not share materials, even if they are redacted.
Please visit our Expert Witness Database for referrals for country conditions and health experts. You must be signed into your CGRS account to access the database. Please note that CGRS provides expert contact information to enable attorneys to find potential experts, but appearing in our database does not imply endorsement of an expert. CGRS does not guarantee any expert’s work product. Database users must conduct their own research and vetting when deciding whether to engage an expert on their asylum case. While we vet all experts for basic minimum requirements prior to inclusion in our database, we are generally not in a position to vouch for individual experts. Attorneys must research and appropriately vet experts to ensure they are an appropriate fit for their case.
CGRS cannot mediate disputes between experts and attorneys. We provide referrals for reference only, and appearance in the CGRS Expert Witness Database does not indicate CGRS's endorsement of an expert, and we cannot guarantee any expert's work product.
If you are interested in being listed in the Expert Witness Database, please register for an expert account then create an expert profile to submit your information for consideration. We appreciate your interest!
The Expert Witness Resource Library is a curated library of resources to support work as an expert witness supporting asylum, withholding of removal, and claims under the Convention Against Torture. The library includes resources to support collaboration with a legal team, resources on the practice of serving as an expert witness, sample declarations, and specific to country conditions and medical expert witnesses, and more.
The library can be accessed by anyone registered for an expert account with CGRS. Please note that the library is not intended for attorneys or individuals who do not intend to serve as an expert witness in immigration proceedings. If you are an attorney looking for resources on working with experts, go to the TA Library and select the "Working with Experts" filter in the Other Topics filter group.
If you are an expert interested in accessing the library, click here after logging into your account.