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42. Throughout this paper I refer to the cases of asylum

seekers who have been represented by me or my colleagues.

The names and home countries have been changed to preserve

the asylum seekers' identities.  But the operative facts

have not.  They come from accounts by dozens of people who

have been granted asylum in the United States and who for

various reasons would have been precluded from applying for

asylum if the 1996 legislation had been in effect when they

arrived in the United States.

43. See Clyde Haberman, "Helping Hand in the Quest for Ref-

uge," New York Times, March 1, 1996, p. Bl.  The article

quoted Dr. Allen Keller, who runs a clinic at Bellevue

Hospital and New York University Medical Center for torture

victims: "I have one patient, every time a car backfires, he

hits the ground."

44. Joshua P. Davis, Georgetown University Law Center,

Center for Applied Legal Studies, letter to Rep. Henry Hyde

(R-Ill.), May 21, 1996.

45. Roy Petty, "Attack on Asylum," letter to the editor,

Chicago Tribune, February 29, 1996, p. 22.  Petty is direc-

tor of the Midwest Immigration Rights Center.

46. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights works with law

firms in New York and Washington, D.C., to provide pro bono

legal representation for asylum seekers.

47. Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Asylum Project:

Summary of Statistical Review of 200 Randomly Selected Files

of Asylum Clients (New York: Lawyers Committee for Human

Rights, February 1996).

48. See Physicians for Human Rights, Medical Testimony on

Victims of Torture: A Physician's Guide to Political Asylum

Cases (Boston: Physicians for Human Rights, 1991), p. 13.

The guide concludes, "Because of the events under which they

fled their home countries, many asylum seekers arrive in the

United States without direct evidence of their torture,

mistreatment or persecution."  As a result, doctors may have

to be called on to demonstrate "that the applicant's physi-

cal and/or psychological symptoms are consistent with events

of torture or other persecution as described by the appli-

cant."

49. In Board of Immigration Appeals, "In re Mogharrabi,"

Interim Decision no. 3028, December 12, 1987, the board