In immigration proceedings, the burden of proof is on asylum-seekers to establish that they meet the legal definition of a refugee. If applicants are unable to meet this burden of proof, they are at immediate risk of deportation, most often back to the same country where they claim serious risk of torture, death, or human rights abuses.

Research from The Center for Victims of Torture indicates that 44% of asylum-seekers in the U.S. are survivors of torture, but due to a range of complex factors, such as their persecutors' deliberate destruction of evidence, the abrupt circumstances that prompt them to flee, or limited means to assemble their case while incarcerated in a U.S. immigration detention facility, asylum-seekers seldom have the opportunity to gather concrete evidence proving the torture and persecution they have survived. 

In many cases, asylum-seekers' only available evidence is their testimony to the human rights abuses they have endured. The widespread scarcity of resources and support for building a humanitarian protection claim is a major contributing factor to asylum case denials in the United States:

While some survivors can afford to pay for an evaluation, evaluations are prohibitively expensive for many others navigating the U.S. immigration system and increasingly out of reach as a result of immigration policies that limit access to work authorization and safety net benefits for asylum-seekers.

Medical and mental health evaluations can similarly provide substantial evidentiary support for other forms of humanitarian protection, including T-Visas, U-Visas, VAWA petitions, and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status.

The EAHR currently has local staff facilitating evaluations from IRC offices in Seattle and Tucson. While telehealth has expanded the possibilities for providing evaluations to applicants based outside of these cities, we can only arrange evaluations in the states of Arizona and Washington at this time due to complex cross-state licensure regulations and restrictions.

Our local programs are supported by a dedicated National Support Team who oversee EAHR's wider strategy and growth. Please contact our National Team with inquiries pertaining to volunteer training curricula, organizational partnerships, development opportunities, or overall program structure. 

• EAHR staff coordinate appointment logistics, including arrangements for exam venue, interpretation, and accommodations as needed.

• EAHR staff are on-call during every evaluation appointment to assist with any challenges that may arise, ranging from technical difficulties to crisis intervention.

• All EAHR volunteers receive ongoing training, clinical support, and access to a resource library for writing their affidavits. As a key step in the volunteer onboarding process, all new volunteers are paired with an experienced evaluator for 1:1 mentorship before their first evaluation. 

• All evaluations receive feedback from an EAHR staff member or peer review from a highly-experienced evaluator.

• To ensure the independence and objectivity of our evaluations, EAHR staff liaise between legal representatives and evaluators, such that there is no direct communication between the legal representative and the volunteer evaluator.

While the EAHR team can support links to outside resources for ongoing care to address critical medical or mental health needs identified during an evaluation, EAHR does not provide any form of treatment or advocacy.