Page 5 - Katten Annual Pro Bono Review
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2016 Katten Pro Bono Service Awards Recipient

“The feeling that I am helping someone start      Peter Wilson, a litigation partner in
a new life away from tragedy and persecution      Chicago, leveraged his passion for helping
that most of us cannot even imagine is            those seeking asylum when he was
indescribable. Despite how rewarding our          introduced to Moushe Sayad*, a refugee
jobs can be, it feels different to represent the  from Karakosh, Iraq. Living in a small
interests of a corporation than the personal      town about an hour outside of Mosul, in
                                                  Northern Iraq, he met his wife Ramina* at
freedoms of an individual.”                       church and planned to build a new house

		  — Emily Rochy                                 in which to raise their children. Despite
		     Associate                                  the constant turmoil elsewhere in Iraq,

                                                  Moushe worked as a pharmacist and the

family enjoyed a quiet life. That is, until the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)

began a brutal campaign of terror against Shia Muslims and religious minorities of

Northern Iraq. ISIL destroyed local artifacts and executed innocent men, women and

children through grotesque beheadings and crucifixions.

Not long before the city of Mosul fell to ISIL, Moushe began receiving threatening
phone calls from an anonymous caller. The caller knew details about Moushe’s family,
referred to him as an “atheist pig” and threatened to kill him. The police told him they
couldn’t help. Moushe’s pharmacy was bombed twice, with continued phone calls and
warnings of more attacks. As the Sayad family feared the next bomb, ISIL militants
began shelling their town, killing innocent civilians. With nothing but the clothes on
their backs, Moushe, a pregnant Ramina and their two young children, along with
hundreds of others, fled to a nearby town and eventually made it to Jordan. Luckily,
Ramina had relatives living in Chicago so the Sayads were able to secure tourist visas
and apply for asylum once they arrived in the United States.

For many refugees like the Sayad family, escaping the harrowing experience in
their home country can lead to more pain and frustration as the asylum process
lingers on. Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), a
Katten community partner, eases the stress of the bureaucratic process by providing
advocacy and direct legal services. That’s how Pete met the Sayads and took their
case to the USCIS Chicago Asylum Office, ultimately winning asylum for the family
last winter.

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