The administration has attempted to decimate the asylum system by moving to send applicants to third countries. In 2025, the use of Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs) and other third-country transfer agreements expanded significantly to over 30 countries. Each country-specific agreement includes its own parameters and potential impacts on your clients. Attendees will learn how to find the agreements, determine whether their clients fall under them, and develop the best arguments against them.

Featured Topics

• Locating and assessing applicability of ACAs
• Arguing timeliness
• Due process challenges to third-country transfers
• Interplay between ACAs and grants of withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture
• Best strategies and frameworks when your client’s fear is based on never having been to the country
• Appeal options if the asylum application is pre-terminated based on ACAs

Faculty

Leah L. Chavarria (DL), AILA Federal Court Litigation Section Steering Committee, San Diego, CA

Dree K. Collopy, AILA Author, AILA's Asylum Primer: A Practical Guide to U.S. Asylum Law and Procedure, 9th ed., Washington, D.C.

Lauren McClure, AILA Removal Defense Section Steering Committee, Chicago, IL

Peter A. Habib, San Francisco, CA

AILA Membership Benefit – Access to Free Seminar Recordings
Enjoy access to free seminar recordings as an AILA Member. AILA encourages live attendance for those wishing to ask the speaker questions. Recordings will be available approximately two weeks after the live event date. AILA members can access these seminars, with no CLE credit, for free.