ABSTRACT
Refugees seeking asylum in the United States face a legal system insensitive to the emotional problems refugees commonly suffer. Refugees who have escaped persecution in their homelands may be unprepared for the stress of the political asylum process. They are often treated more like criminals than victims of political violence. Many experience renewed terror as they are arrested by armed officers, jailed, and put on trial. Lawyers and judges with little psychological training may further aggravate the stress by their inquisitory or adversarial behavior, or misinterpret the symptoms of trauma-induced emotional disorders and conclude that refugees are dissembling or untrustworthy. Under such threatening circumstances, refugees may be unable to reveal the facts necessary to gain asylum.
Mental health practitioners can help by explaining the psychological symptoms of trauma to lawyers and judges. Psychological evaluations of refugees have been successfully submitted in asylum cases to explain the refugee's seemingly aberrant behavior, to corroborate the refugee's testimony, and to provide a sympathetic lens through which the refugee can be seen.
