Kasowitz Reunites Pro Bono Client from Ghana with Her Daughter

Kasowitz Benson Torres was instrumental in reuniting its pro bono client, a Ghanaian woman who sought asylum in the U.S., with her sixteen-year-old daughter, whom the mother had not seen for seven years.  In 2017, our client was forced to flee Ghana after suffering domestic abuse in a forced marriage and receiving threats of genital mutilation from her husband.  When our client fled Ghana, she had to leave her daughter behind with relatives.  Kasowitz successfully secured a grant of asylum for the mother in 2021, and in 2023 secured permission for her daughter to enter the United States as a derivative asylee.  On December 12, 2023, mother and daughter were reunited at JFK International Airport in New York City, when our client’s daughter also met her five-year-old brother, a U.S. citizen, for the first time.

Kasowitz Benson Torres Staff Attorney Janine Lucia Kapp handled the reunification process, including filing for and obtaining derivative asylum, under the supervision of Teresa Matushaj, Counsel and Deputy Chair of the firm’s Pro Bono Committee.