In 2015, former associate Emily Deininger, former partner Jared Manes, and Partners David C. Lachman and Michael W. Ross obtained a grant of asylum for Marcos, a seventeen-year-old Honduran boy who had fled to the United States because he was being persistently abused by his grandmother and the other family members with whom he had been living. Marcos’s case was referred to Jenner by Kids in Need of Defense (“KIND”), a not-for-profit organization that identifies pro bono attorneys for unaccompanied alien children, in October 2014.
Ms. Deininger and Mr. Manes filed an affirmative asylum application on Marcos’s behalf in April 2015, contending that he had been persecuted because he was a member of a “particular social group” of children living in Honduras without the benefit of parental protection, , and that the Honduran government has been systematically unable or unwilling to protect such children from child abuse. Marcos had never met his father, and his mother had moved to the United States when he was only two years old. Marcos is also Garifuna, an indigenous ethnic group, which exposed him to widespread racism and caused him to be ostracized at school.
After submitting Marcos’s asylum application, Ms. Deininger and Mr. Lachman worked to prepare supplemental briefing and demonstrated through three expert reports that Marcos had physical scars consistent with long-term abuse, that he was suffering psychological symptoms of severe emotional and physical abuse, and that the government of Honduras was unable or unwilling to protect children who are without parental protection. Ms. Deininger and Mr. Lachman then represented Marcos at his successful asylum interview with the Newark Asylum Office.
In 2017, Ms.Deininger , Mr. Manes and Associate Melissa T. Fedornak then filed a green card application on Marcos’s behalf. In July 2018, Marcos received legal permanent resident status, making him eligible to naturalize as a US citizen in 2022. Marcos is now living happily with his mother in the Bronx, where he is attending high school and enjoying spending his free time playing soccer with friends.
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