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A man who says he was forced to flee Nicaragua, afraid for his family’s safety, is planting new roots in North Carolina thanks to Duke Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic. 

Students and faculty of the clinic secured permanent asylum status for the man and his family, allowing them to make a fresh start in the U.S. without fear of deportation to a country where they faced certain persecution.

The client, M., left his 1,000-acre coffee farm with his wife and young daughter. (Editor’s note: we are not using the full name of the client to protect his identity, as required by state and federal law, and to ensure that the identities of asylum seekers remain confidential, as required by federal law.) M. says his family had become a political target due to its longstanding resistance to the ruling party. 

While hiding for months in a neighboring country, M. says he watched his brother and uncle killed by paramilitary forces and saw those same forces raid his home trying to find him. M. and his family made their way to the U.S. after waiting in Mexico for their U.S. immigration court date, eventually landing in North Carolina. Their case came to the attention of the Immigrant Rights Clinic, which is led by director Kate Evans and supervising attorney Shane Ellison. The three-person family were among the 32 people the clinic has successfully defended from deportation. 

“It is always a privilege to work with our clients to tell their stories and work with our students to build our clients’ cases,” Evans said. “It is particularly satisfying when that work translates to victory. After years waiting in Mexico before he was even allowed to start the asylum process, we got to share the news that he and his family have permanent protection in the U.S. There is no sweeter part of this job.” 

M.’s case was personal for student-attorney Felipe Pereira De Bayle JD/LLM ’25, a U.S. citizen who grew up in Nicaragua and is involved in humanitarian and political activities there. Many of his own family members have left the country. Human Rights Watch estimates some 346,000 people have fled political violence in Nicaragua as asylum-seekers or refugees. 

“The situation, broadly, has caused a lot of people to leave. I calculate that maybe 10% or 15% of the population has left Nicaragua, and that’s because of the oppression of the regime, which obviously affects the economy as well,” Pereira De Bayle said.

Building on work by previous students, Pereira De Bayle tapped his own experience and knowledge of the situation to identify critical documents from Nicaragua in support of M.’s political asylum claim. He and his clinic partner prepared the evidence and a brief and traveled to Arlington, Virginia, to present the claim before an asylum officer.  

Pereira De Bayle says M. had been careful to follow U.S. law and displayed strong character. He was working, had filed all his taxes on time, and was even preparing to buy a house. Pereira De Bayle said M. was in, every respect, a model would-be United States citizen.

“We felt we had not only a very strong case but a great story to tell from the point of view of the application. It was a human story,” Pereira De Bayle said. “The client was incredible, despite everything that he had gone through.”

M. and his family are now settling into their new life in North Carolina.

“Having support from Duke’s Immigrant Rights Clinic has been extremely important for my family since we did not have the necessary resources to hire an attorney and at the same time we wanted to contribute to the practice of teaching university students and publicize the situation that happened in our country,” M. said. “We will be eternally grateful to them for their unconditional support. Thanks to them our asylum case was approved.”

The outcome was personally meaningful for Pereira De Bayle. “There are so many things that if you're a lawyer you can do, and you can only do them if you're a lawyer,” Pereira De Bayle said. 

“It was an incredible feeling to be involved in a case where things were actually advancing. It makes a big difference for the client to have such stellar representation, where everything was done with such care and love. Now they can live the American dream.”