Well-founded fear : [and two training modules] / produced and directed by Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini.

New York, N.Y. : Epidavros Project, [2004]

©2004

KF4836 .W443 2004

In English with parts spoken in various foreign languages with English subtitles.

3 videocassettes (296 min.) : sound, color ; 1/2 in. + 1 discussion guide + 2 discussion pamphlets (20 pages ; 20 cm)

(OCoLC)71792531

Documentary about the American political asylum system that takes viewers within the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), where bureaucrats ponder the sometimes life-or-death fate of immigrants seeking asylum. Includes confidential conversations between asylum officers, lawyers, translators, and refugees. It is the task of the asylum officer to identify where there exists a "well-founded fear" that an applicant's life may be placed in jeopardy by deportation. But with thousands of applicants, as many fraudulent as legitimate, the officers acknowledge that truth and justice are elusive and that subjectivity plays a decisive hand in their evaluations. Including horrific testimonials of torture and grievous accounts of loss, the film also implies that personality and prejudice, an officer's level of experience (cynicism or naivete̹), the applicant's credibility, and even the translator's interpretation of a testimony can also bear on the outcome.

VHS.

Tales from real life
Practicing asylum law

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