Refugee and Asylum Seeker Law

To find up to date commentary, cases and legislation on US refugee law, we recommend using American Jurisprudence on Westlaw (database identifier: AMJUR) - an encyclopedic statement of American law arranged alphabetically by topic.

Once in Westlaw, to find the Refugee entry in American Jurisprudence:

1. select the United States tab. American Jurisprudence is listed on this page.
2. link to the Table of Contents.
3. Scroll through the alphabetical list to Aliens and Citizens and use the + signs to navigate to III: Seeking Admission to the United States: Immigrants, Nonimmigrants, Refugees and Asylees and then C: Refugees and Asylum.
4. You can then either browse through the content using the + signs to get increasingly specific until you get to a hyperlink to the full-text commentary, or click on a heading and search within it.
5. Here you will find commentary, cases and links to the relevant legislation in the US Code.

Finding Refugee Cases from all US Courts

Many refugee cases heard in all US courts and Boards are available as pdf replicas of the original unreported judgments on the UNHCR's Refworld website (open access)

Refugee and asylum cases are heard in the following courts in the United States:

Commentary on the legislation - use the United States Code Annotated on Westlaw - 8 U.S.C.A. § 1158