Paromita Shah could've had it all: The high-powered corporate law career, the speedy and so-cute BMW Roadster and regular vacations in exotic locations. But Shah enjoys none of these things. Because of one impetuous decision, clearly affected by law school burnout and impurities in the Boston water supply, the 29-year-old now leads the idealistic life of an immigration asylum lawyer.

Instead of power-lunching on Beluga with Boston Brahmins, she spends her hours with potential deportees from Haiti, Liberia, El Salvador and elsewhere.

You know, foreigners.

She even takes public transportation and sometimes actually walks. Such are the follies of misguided youth.

"I stumbled into it," she explained of her career choice. "My parents said 'Do immigration, do immigration. You'll love immigration.'"

Suspicious enough, but true.

"My family has always believed in social justice," said Shah. "My father always talked about these issues. Everything from Israel-Palestine to civil rights."

Two years after receiving her law degree from Suffolk University Law School, Shah continues to work at Greater Boston Legal Services, the largest non-profit firm in Boston. There, she works alongside others, who deal with such issues as welfare, housing, elderly and family law. The group also houses the Harvard Refugee and Immigration Clinic.

As an asylum lawyer, Shah has to devour State Department reports on various nations. Her job is to explain to the Immigration and Naturalization Service exactly why her clients can't afford to remain in their homeland. Recently, Shah won asylum for a Brazilian who claimed his homosexuality was life-threatening, making him the subject of gang violence.

"Gangs would assault gays," she explained, "and the police wouldn't do anything about it." Often, she added, the police and para-military officers themselves rape and abuse gays, a fact that stands in stark contrast to the sexual openness witnessed during Brazil's most famous festival, The Carnaval.

"In a place like Brazil, it's very difficult to talk about homosexuality," she said, "even though in the Carnaval (ethnic spelling of carnival) there's a very high number of homosexuals who come out."

Shah and her client thus applied for asylum under the social group category, one of five areas in which applicants may claim persecution, the others being race, nationality, religion or political opinion. The key form, or "crown jewel," as Shah calls it, is the affidavit, which is filled out by either the client or one of the law students working at the legal center.

The affidavit details the background of the individual and the conditions that necessitated an asylum claim. While many people can lay claim to past persecution, others resort to a claim of well-founded fear persecution -- 'If I stayed around in this country, I could be killed or severely hurt".

Quite often, however, the most sincere claim is rejected, leaving Shah and her client with little recourse. "It's so hard to appeal a case," she said. "The courts have granted the INS tons of authority. There's an immense amount of power held by the INS."

Although she points out that her own state of Massachusetts is immigrant-friendly, in that it provides health care, Shah points out that the system as a whole is hardly on the side of newcomers.

"The power scheme here is ludicrous," she said. "The whole purpose of the INS is to deport people. Immigrants don't have any rights and when you're before the INS, you feel like you're being persecuted."

Making matters worse, she contends, is the fact that the US government covertly sponsors paramilitary forces around the world, usually designed to destabilize ruling governments. These paramilitary groups often terrorize locals, but in such situations it's unlikely the US will ever acknowledge the reality.

"It would be harder to assert a claim that was contrary to what the State Department was saying," Shah explained. She pointed to the situation in Haiti in the early 90s, when the US-funded ongoing efforts to unseat the Aristide government.

"If you look at any of the State Department reports, there's definitely a very poor portrayal of his agenda and his socialist leanings," said Shah.

A similar situation applied to refugees from El Salvador in the 80s, many of whom were denied asylum by the US but remained illegally, and settled down. "Their claims were denied by the thousand until a class-action suit was filed," she said.

But in recent years, she pointed out that the State Department was trying to correct its past injustices. A number of programs have been instituted to legitimize claims that were rejected earlier. For Salvadorans, Nicaraguans and Cubans it was a program known as NACARA, while for Haitians it was HRIFA, the Haitian Immigration Fairness Act of 1998.

"The State Department realizes they have an interest in legalizing large numbers of people who are working here," said Shah. "Many of them had established families in this country."

Although there have not historically been many asylum-seekers from South Asia, there was a period, during the 80s, when a number of Sikhs applied. Most of these fled the anti-Sikh hostility at the height of the Khalistan movement.

"There's not really an amnesty-based program for South Asians," Shah explained, "because there's really no political instability that would rise to the level of Haiti or El Salvador." An emerging area that Shah's been dealing with -- which is related to her work with the Violence Against Women's Act -- is the gender-based asylum claim, aimed at women who have fled extreme domestic violence.

"It's very tricky and it's a very cutting-edge asylum claim," she said. "The INS' position is that this will cause a flood of applications, but there's definitely a basis for this." Not surprisingly, she sees a number of gender-based cases coming from India.

"It might be somebody who's naturalized here. They go to India, they marry there, and they have all these expectations of their wife," she said. "And they treat her like cattle."

One can only assume that all this talk of rape, torture and injustice would have made Shah a pretty bleak and ultra-serious person to be with. But somehow, though, Shah manages to pencil into her life her quota of frivolities -- anything to keep herself sane.

Lately, that's included get-togethers with other young South Asian (Read: single) professionals, where she can be sure the conversations will remain bubbly and light. "I don't think most people care about these subjects." Then again, she added, laughing, "I'm also going there to dance."

Design: Dominic Xavier

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