This persecution goes unpunished when the government inflicts or condones the abuse or mistreatment. Without legal redress available, many victims flee to the United States for safety given the relatively better treatment and rule of law they can find here against such violations.

Homosexuals who have experienced or fear persecution in their homelands have been eligible for asylum in the United States as members of a particular social group since June, 1994 when Toboso-Alfonso, 20 I&N Dec. 819 (BIA 1990), the Board of Immigration Appeals case involving a Cuban gay asylum-seeker, was designated as precedent.

On April 1, 1998, an unprecedented one-year filing deadline on asylum claims will take effect, requiring that all asylum applicants file within one year of arrival in the United States unless they can prove "exceptional circumstances" for their failure to file.

Concerned that sexual minorities will fall through the cracks without greater outreach and education to advocates and the gay and lesbian community, the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights and the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force have produced the innovative, practical publication entitled Preparing Sexual Orientation-Based Asylum Claims: A Handbook for Advocates and Asylum-Seekers.

Authored by Heather McClure, Christopher Nugent and Lavi Soloway, the 178-page handbook provides an in-depth focus on preparing affirmative applications for asylum by gays and lesbians, and insightful information and resources to aid sexual minority asylum-seekers and their advocates in the preparation and representation of bonafide asylum claims.

Foregrounding the needs of sexual minority asylum-seekers, the handbook includes chapters on the history of asylum based on sexual orientation; client-centered approaches to working with the applicant; techniques to raise relevant information and facilitate the client's informed decision of whether to file; step-by-step preparation of the application and the client's affidavit; guidelines and resources for securing supporting documentation for sexual orientation-based claims; considerations when preparing the client to testify; and further resources for legal, social, medical and psychological support for the asylum-seeker. The handbook also addresses legal concerns for HIV-positive asylum-seekers.

The handbook is a component of the Emergency Asylum Campaign launched by the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force and the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission to alert potential gay and lesbian asylum-seekers to the April 1st deadline.

Asylum claims by gays or lesbians have been rare with less than two hundred identified by the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission in San Francisco.

There are several reasons for the low numbers of these asylum claims: clients' unfamiliarity with their eligibility to apply; reluctance to disclose their fears based on their sexual orientation to a lawyer in this "foreign" land; and advocates' difficulties in eliciting from clients such relevant information or, once discovered, the difficulties in evaluating or developing asylum claims.

"It is our hope that the handbook will serve as an invaluable resource to get the word out to potential asylum-seekers about the April 1st filing deadline and to support practitioners' rigorous evaluation, preparation and representation of gay and lesbian asylum-seekers before Asylum Offices nationwide," said Christopher Nugent.

Preparing Sexual Orientation-Based Asylum Claims: A Handbook for Advocates and Asylum-Seekers is available through the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights at (312) 629-4500 ext.4531.