New Mexico Jewish LinkPublished by the Jewish Federation of New Mexico

A Jewish Lawyer's Albuquerque Mission for Central American Asylum Seekers

In the high desert of Albuquerque, where sunsets spill pink over the Sandia Mountains, a lawyer spends her evenings not chasing billable hours but writing declarations for frightened families. Sarah Greenberg, a graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Law, has built a quiet practice around representing asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle of Central America. Her office, modest and lined with both case files and Hebrew calendars, has become a small but determined node in a national network of pro bono immigration advocacy.

For Greenberg, the choice was never framed as heroic. It grew out of a Jewish instinct she absorbed at her family's Shabbat table: that a society is judged by how it treats the most vulnerable. That conviction, drawn from the Torah's repeated commandment to love the stranger, meets a humanitarian crisis at the southern border, and Greenberg has chosen to be on the front line.

The story resonates far from the American Southwest. In Sydney and Melbourne, Jewish communal organisations have built their own infrastructure for welcoming refugees, drawing on a parallel reading of Jewish obligation. Australian lawyers at firms such as Allens and King & Wood Mallesons also take on protection visa work, navigating a system shaped by the Migration Act 1958. For readers in Australia, Greenberg's work in Albuquerque offers a familiar shape, even if the statutes differ.

The Road to Pro Bono Immigration Work

Greenberg did not begin her career expecting to specialise in asylum law. Her early years at a midsize Albuquerque firm focused on real estate transactions and small business disputes, work that paid well but left her searching for meaning. A conversation with a mentor at Congregation B'nai Israel pointed her toward the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, where she began volunteering on a single case involving a Guatemalan mother fleeing domestic violence.

That first case opened a door. Within a year, Greenberg had completed the training required to appear before the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a process that demands fluency in asylum law and courtroom procedure. She now handles roughly a dozen active matters at any time, almost all without charging a fee, supported by a small grant pipeline through the Hebrew Free Loan Association and several synagogue social action committees.

Her clients typically arrive in Albuquerque after weeks of travel from the Mexican border, exhausted and unsure whether they will be released to a family member or detained in a federal facility. Each interview, each affidavit, each courtroom appearance requires patience and cultural sensitivity. Greenberg has learned to recognise the language of fear and to translate it, both literally and legally, into the framework that an immigration judge can weigh.

Why Central Americans Flee

The clients who fill Greenberg's calendar come overwhelmingly from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, three nations where criminal organisations wield power that rivals the state. Children as young as twelve face gang conscription; women endure targeted violence for refusing sexual exploitation; journalists and indigenous leaders are threatened for speaking publicly. U.S. State Department human rights reports document these patterns, and immigration attorneys rely on country conditions evidence to corroborate individual stories.

The journeys north are themselves a form of trauma. Migrants traverse the Darién Gap, a dense jungle straddling Colombia and Panama, where robbery, rape, and disappearance are endemic. Those who survive often reach the U.S. border carrying physical scars and deep distrust of authority. Greenberg's task is to help courts see the full picture, transforming a narrative that officials might dismiss as economic migration into a coherent claim of persecution on protected grounds.

For Australian readers, the pattern mirrors stories that arrive by boat and plane from similar regions. Sydney's Refugee Council and Melbourne's Asylum Seeker Resource Centre document comparable violence in their caseloads. The geography differs, but the legal analysis often converges on similar human truths.

Comparing Two Asylum Systems

The frameworks that govern asylum seekers in the United States and Australia share vocabulary but diverge sharply in structure and outcomes. A side-by-side look clarifies what Greenberg's work requires and what her Australian counterparts navigate every day.

Feature United States Australia
Primary statute Immigration and Nationality Act Migration Act 1958
Leading visa type Asylum (affirmative or defensive) Protection visa (subclass 866)
Decision maker Asylum Office, then Immigration Court Department of Home Affairs, then Administrative Appeals Tribunal
Detention policy Often released on bond or parole Mandatory detention, including offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island
Country conditions evidence Expert witnesses, State Department reports Department of Home Affairs country information, UNHCR submissions
Average processing time Months to several years Often more than five years for protection visa applicants
Legal aid availability Limited, reliant on pro bono networks Government-funded Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme

The contrast underscores why pro bono lawyers carry so much weight in both systems. Where government funding falls short, voluntary effort fills the gap.

Jewish Tradition as the Moral Backbone

Greenberg traces her professional compass to verses that have shaped Jewish ethics for millennia. Leviticus commands the Israelites not to oppress the stranger, remembering that they themselves were once foreigners in Egypt. The instruction appears thirty-six times in the Torah, more than any other ethical directive, a fact that rabbis often invoke when explaining why refugee advocacy sits comfortably within observant life.

She is not alone in drawing on that heritage. Across New Mexico, Jewish communities have woven refugee support into their calendars. A a new program connects Jewish seniors with high school volunteers for shabbat visits illustrates how intergenerational bonds and hospitality extend into many corners of communal life, even as lawyers like Greenberg channel the same spirit through the courtroom.

Textual foundations for welcoming the stranger include:

Practical steps in a typical asylum case reflect this grounding:

Jewish advocacy organisations including HIAS, the oldest refugee resettlement agency in the world, and T'ruah have trained rabbis and lawyers to accompany migrants through the system. Their curricula echo in synagogue adult education classes in Albuquerque and in similar study groups in Caulfield, St Kilda, and Bondi.

Echoes in Australian Jewish Life

Australian Jews have a long record of organising around refugee policy. In 2018, members of Melbourne's Jewish community helped sponsor a young Hazara woman who had spent years in offshore detention, an effort coordinated through the Australian Jewish Democratic Society and the Uniting Church. Lawyers at firms including Arnold Bloch Leibler and King & Wood Mallesons have taken on protection visa cases, sometimes pairing with the Refugee Advice and Casework Service in Sydney.

Greenberg's work finds a natural ally in this tradition. Both communities read the same biblical passages, walk the same holidays, and wrestle with similar political pressures. What differs is the legislative architecture, not the underlying moral question. Australians debating immigration policy can learn from how American Jewish lawyers have institutionalised pro bono asylum work, embedding it within firm culture rather than leaving it to individual conscience alone.

The shared challenge is sustaining the pipeline of volunteers. Burnout is real in both hemispheres, and the emotional weight of repeated stories of violence erodes even committed advocates. Greenberg credits her synagogue's weekly Talmud study with keeping her grounded, and Australian colleagues point to their own rhythms, including Shabbat dinners after Friday services, morning walks along the Yarra, and weekend Bunnings sausage sizzles, as small anchors in a demanding vocation.

The story of a single Albuquerque lawyer cannot capture the scope of the Central American exodus, nor the full complexity of Australian refugee policy. What it can do is remind readers that legal advocacy for asylum seekers is rarely a solitary endeavour. It rests on networks of Jewish communal institutions, on traditions that predate any modern border, and on the willingness of lawyers to trade billable hours for the slow, painstaking work of telling someone else's story to a judge.

Remember this: protecting the stranger is not a metaphor. It is a craft, practiced in courtrooms from Albuquerque to Parramatta, and it depends on ordinary professionals choosing, again and again, to show up.