When Texas, Florida and Arizona authorities began busing tens of thousands of migrants from the Southern border to Northern cities last year, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP attorneys stepped up to provide legal aid to hundreds of Venezuelan families applying for asylum in the U.S.

As more and more buses arrived in New York, Gibson Dunn's pro bono chair, Katherine Marquart, searched for ways to use the firm's robust immigration practice to help. By October, she had connected with the nonprofit organization Project Rousseau, which was looking for attorneys to provide legal aid to Venezuelan families arriving in the city.

"Gibson Dunn leaped into this head first," Project Rousseau founder Andrew Heinrich said, adding that the firm screened more than 100 families in six weeks.

While most of the seven million people who have left Venezuela since 2015 fleeing violence and a lack of food, medicine and essential services sought refuge in neighboring countries, some have made the difficult journey to the U.S.'s Southern border where the U.S. has largely permitted them to enter.

But in the summer of 2022, authorities in Texas, Florida and Arizona took the novel approach of arranging transportation for tens of thousands of Venezuelans and other asylum-seekers from the Southern border to Northern destinations, saying they were seeking to shift the burden of the border crisis onto left-leaning cities with so-called sanctuary city policies.

Without coordinating with the cities to the North, tens of thousands of asylum-seekers arrived in Northern U.S. cities, many disembarking at New York City's Port Authority Bus Terminal.

City and nonprofit organizations have scrambled to meet the needs of those bused into the cities. Among them has been Project Rousseau, which provides immigration legal services and other educational and social services to students and their families.

Heinrich, who is also an attorney, told Law360 that responding to the needs of so many rapidly arriving migrants in New York City felt a bit like "drinking from a fire hose."

Venezuelan families staying in hotels, which have been rented out as temporary shelters by New York City's  Department of Homeless Services, began sending their children to nearby schools. Those schools, in turn, referred the families to Project Rousseau, Heinrich said.

Since the spring, Project Rousseau has taken over 500 young people, from about 280 Venezuelan families, under its wing, offering academic and social services as well as free legal aid.

Heinrich said his phone still goes off a few times a day from a school or city official reporting newly arrived young people.

To help the Venezuelan families navigate the U.S. immigration process, Heinrich and his team began to screen each one for asylum eligibility.

Marquart told Law360 that 75 Gibson Dunn attorneys from various practice groups across the country, including firm managing partner Barbara Becker, pitched in to help.

With the aid of interpreters, the attorneys conducted initial screening interviews online with each Venezuelan family under Project Rousseau's care to determine their eligibility for asylum.

"Gibson Dunn has been doing a Herculean effort with us so far," Heinrich said.

During the screenings, the families were asked to share details about why they left Venezuela and what they fear would happen if they were forced to return.

"We really need to leave no stone unturned in order to be as helpful as possible," said Heinrich, who has conducted many of the screenings himself.

Heinrich said many of the asylum hopefuls he interviewed described death threats, the murders of family members and torture.

Others offered accounts of their harrowing journeys since leaving home, including being hunted in Colombia by armed gangs — known as colectivos — loyal to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and gender-based violence.

"You can understand why folks tried to seek a safer, better life," Heinrich said.

Among the biggest challenges faced by the attorneys who volunteer to conduct immigration screenings, Marquart said, is the need to quickly develop a level of trust with families so they feel comfortable sharing the details of, potentially, the darkest moments in their lives.

Going through a translator made that all the more challenging, Marquart said.

Despite the language barrier, she said each family her team worked with had the benefit of an attorney "who is advocating for them, is helping them and is trying to provide a somewhat softer landing here than they otherwise have been afforded."

Marquart noted that the screenings focused on identifying families well-suited to move forward with asylum claims, and that some of these families might be eligible for multiple forms of relief, including family-based relief.

"We identified hundreds of individuals with strong asylum claims and we look forward to working with them to ensure they have the opportunity to have those claims meaningfully heard and adjudicated," Marquart said.

As of late January, the Gibson Dunn attorneys had spent over 450 pro bono hours on the project, Marquart said, noting that the firm provides one-to-one billable credit for all pro bono work their lawyers do, with no cap on hours.

Among the attorneys who have volunteered to do screenings is first-year Gibson Dunn associate Mary Naughton, who said Gibson Dunn's generous pro bono program "absolutely" factored into her decision to join the firm.

Naughton, who studied political asylum and refugee law, said hearing the families tell their stories was very emotional for them and for her.

"Being strong enough to tell their story to a stranger like me shows a lot of courage," Naughton told Law360.

Naughton said she was pleased to have landed a job that provided her with an opportunity to directly help those in need and was grateful that she had been able to jump into Gibson Dunn's pro bono practice immediately upon joining the firm.

She said she was hoping to keep volunteering with Project Rousseau.

In addition to screening Venezuelan asylum hopefuls, Gibson Dunn attorneys are now working with Project Rousseau to help eligible families officially start the asylum application process.

The next challenge will be to ensure that the families receive full-scope representation during the application process.

Unlike asylum-seekers from Ukraine and Afghanistan — who came to the U.S. on a lawful, temporary status, and to whom Gibson Dunn attorneys have also provided pro bono legal aid — many of the asylum-seekers from Venezuela lacked any lawful status when they sought safety at the Southern border, Marquart said.

As a result, many Venezuelans who recently arrived in the U.S. and were bused north now find themselves in removal proceedings and in need of an attorney who can argue their case before an immigration judge.

To scale up their efforts, and assist additional Venezuelan families seeking asylum, Gibson Dunn hopes to lean on the Welcome Legal Alliance, a legal consortium of law firms, nonprofits and corporate clients initially created to provide pro bono legal representation to Afghan refugees and later to Ukrainians.

As of late January, Heinrich said, the number of Venezuelans arriving in New York City continues to grow and with it, so too does the need for legal aid.

--Editing by Karin Roberts.

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