On November 19, 2019, a pro bono team from Wilson Sonsini, along with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of San Francisco, secured a victory in the San Francisco Immigration Court when the court granted asylum status to a 32-year-old mother of three from El Salvador. The client’s father was affiliated with the anti-gang group La Sombra Negra, and as a result, the MS-13 gang killed her father and targeted other family members with threats of harm. After enduring years of threats and police inaction, the client sought asylum in the United States.

In granting asylum, Immigration Judge Anna C. Little found the client’s testimony credible and that the threats to the client’s life were clearly tied to the client’s relationship to and loyalty to her father, as well as the imputed political opinion of being anti-gang.

The Palo Alto-based, Wilson Sonsini pro bono team included attorneys Blair Nelson, Jamie Otto, and Sara Tolbert.