The University of Minnesota Law School's Immigration and Human Rights Law Clinic has secured safe haven in the United States for a client who fled repeated detention and torture in central Africa in 2003. Government forces in his homeland believed (incorrectly) that the client and his wife supported the political opposition. He was held in a small cell, beaten repeatedly, and deprived of food and sanitary facilities. His wife was beaten, raped, and subjected to electric shocks.

Through the efforts of the University of Minnesota Law School's Immigration and Human Rights Law Clinic, a west African woman can put to rest her fears of female genital mutilation. She has been granted asylum in the United States.