Prompt Pilotby Write.law
All prompts

Draft

Outline an asylum declaration

Turns interview notes into a numbered, first-person declaration outline in the client's own voice: nexus built out of what the persecutors said, every gap marked as a question instead of filled in.

About 30 minadvancedImmigration

Your prompt5,225 characters

Still to fill in: What the client told you, Protected ground and your formulation, Forum and posture

RoleYou are an asylum practitioner who has prepared hundreds of declarations and sat through the cross-examinations that follow. You write in the client's vocabulary, not yours, you build nexus out of what the persecutors said and did rather than asserting it, and you never fill a gap in a client's memory with a plausible detail.What I needTurn my interview notes into a declaration outline for a client filing in Forum and posture, built around the ground and formulation in Protected ground and your formulation.InputsWhat the client told me: What the client told you Ground and formulation: Protected ground and your formulation Forum and posture: Forum and posture Threshold issues I see: Threshold issues you already see How the client communicates: How the client communicates Corroboration available: Corroboration availableHow to work this1. Build a numbered chronology first: every dated event in What the client told you, in order, before drafting. Where the client gave a season or a relative marker, keep their phrasing and mark it an anchor to pin down. 2. One numbered paragraph per incident: when, where, who was present, what was said (quotation marks only if the client quoted it), what was done, and what the client did after. 3. Build nexus into the facts, not on top of them. If the persecutors named a reason (an insult, a demand, an accusation), that sentence does the work for you. Where What the client told you has no such statement, mark the paragraph "nexus not yet in the record." 4. Write in the client's register: short sentences, their nouns, no terms of art. "Persecution" and "on account of" belong in the brief. 5. Never supply a fact. Where the account is thin, insert [GAP: ___ - ask client] with the precise question. Do not smooth a sequence into a narrative the record does not support. 6. Map corroboration: each item in Corroboration available to the paragraph it supports; each unsupported paragraph to what could support it and who holds it. 7. List Threshold issues you already see separately: filing timing, prior entries or removals, statements in a credible fear or border interview, potential bars, with what must be checked for each. Never state the standard from memory. 8. Mark the paragraphs requiring the client to describe the hardest events for a separate drafting session, and adapt the sequence to How the client communicates.Close with these four sections, every time, without being askedAssumptions I made. Marked [verify] or [safe]: dates inferred from sequence, relationships assumed, whether I treated your notes as complete. Where this is weakest. The two or three paragraphs a government attorney opens on, by number: an undated event between two dated ones, a detail here but not in the earlier record, harm claimed with no corroboration and no explanation. What only you can decide. Options with tradeoffs, not flags. At minimum: open with the earliest events (clean chronology, but the strongest incident lands twelve paragraphs in) or open with the incident that shows nexus most clearly (immediate force, and the government will say the account was reorganized); and include events the client can describe only partly (completeness, but cross-examination on what they cannot recall) or hold them for testimony (cleaner declaration, but the government asks why it was omitted). What would make this materially better. Ranked by impact: the credible fear or border interview record, the I-589 as filed, dates for the marked anchors, the country-conditions evidence.Output formatA numbered first-person outline in the client's voice. Header: name, forum, ground as formulated. Background, then the chronology one incident per paragraph, then departure and arrival, then fear of return. Gaps marked inline. Then the corroboration map, the threshold-issue list, and the four sections.Never do this- If this declaration would fit any applicant from any country, it is too generic. It should be unusable for anyone but this client. - No hedging filler. Cut "arguably," "it should be noted," and "it depends." Do not tell me to consult an attorney. I am the attorney. - Never invent or improve a fact, date, name, or quotation. Every sentence traces to What the client told you. Legal standards, authority, and country conditions come from my inputs or get marked [UNVERIFIED - check before filing]. - Where you do not know whether an element is met, say you do not know and name what would answer it. Do not smooth over the gap with fluent prose. - Do not pad. A declaration that says less and holds up beats one that says more and cracks on cross. Length is not value.Before you answer- Does every sentence trace to something the client said, with gaps marked rather than filled? - Does any sentence use a term of art this client would not use? - Is nexus shown through what the persecutors said or did, or did I assert it? - Does every dated claim rest on a date the client can confirm, or a marked anchor?

Adds driver's-seat tunes: options instead of answers, questions before work, every citation flagged. Your values come with it.

2

Pressure-test it

Makes the AI switch hats and attack its own answer.

At the individual hearing, the DHS trial attorney will cross-examine from the credible fear notes, the I-589, and every prior statement in the file. Read the declaration as the government reads it, paragraph by paragraph, and list every date, number, sequence, and name he would put to the client to open an inconsistency, and for each, the exact question he would ask. Then name the three paragraphs where the declaration says more than the client can support under questioning, and tell me what to cut or reword before it is filed.
3

Go deeper

Pushes the work further once the basics are right.

Everything in this outline still has to come from the client, in a room, in the next session. Build the preparation packet: (a) a question list for the next client session, ordered so the hardest subject comes after two easier ones, with a stated stopping instruction for each; (b) a corroboration request list naming each document, who holds it, how to ask for it, and the paragraph it would support; and (c) an outline of the country-conditions expert affidavit stating the specific propositions this declaration needs the expert to establish.

Before you run it

What to gather first

  • Interview notes in the client's own words, with your questions included
  • Your proposed protected ground and, for a social group, the exact formulation
  • The forum and posture: asylum office or immigration court, and the circuit
  • Anything already said on the record: credible fear notes, border interview, the I-589 as filed
  • What documents and witnesses actually exist, and who holds them

Watch for

  • The one-year filing deadline, its exceptions, and the bars to asylum are litigated constantly and differ by circuit. Confirm every threshold issue against current law and the actual record, never against what the model states.
  • Particular social group formulations shift with BIA and circuit decisions. The formulation must be yours and must be checked against current authority; a plausible-sounding group the model produces is not a viable one.
  • Every fact in this declaration will be tested under oath. A detail supplied to make a paragraph read better becomes an inconsistency at the hearing and a credibility finding in the decision.
  • Do not let the declaration be polished into fluent English the client does not speak. A witness who cannot recognize their own declaration on the stand loses credibility with it.
  • Intake notes about persecution are among the most sensitive records you will ever hold. Confirm your firm's AI policy and the client's informed consent before pasting them anywhere.

What comes back

A numbered first-person declaration outline in the client's voice: header with name, forum, and ground as formulated; background paragraphs; the chronology one incident per numbered paragraph with gaps marked inline as bracketed questions; departure and arrival; fear of return. Then a corroboration map tying each document and witness to a paragraph, a threshold-issue list, and Assumptions / Where this is weakest / What only you can decide / What would make this better.

See an example of what you’ll get
Declaration of Reina Ixchel Bátz | Immigration Court, San Francisco | PSG as formulated by counsel; alternative imputed political opinion Background 1. I am 29 years old. I was born in Nahualá, Sololá, Guatemala. My first language is K'iche'. 2. I lived with my mother and three younger brothers until 2019. I sold woven cloth at the market in Sololá on Tuesdays and Fridays. Chronology 7. In March 2021 I began living with Elmer Chávez in Nahualá. His family owns the trucks that carry produce to Xela. *(Nexus: not yet in the record; nothing here yet explains why she could not leave. Ask what she was told when she tried.)* 8. [ANCHOR - "around the corn harvest," client could not give a month] In 2021, Elmer's mother came to the house. She said, "You are Indian, you belong to us now, and no one in this town will help you." She said it in front of Elmer's sister. After she left, Elmer locked the door from outside for two days. *(Nexus: in the record; the statement ties the control to her indigenous identity and to her position in the household. This is the strongest nexus paragraph in the account.)* 9. In August 2022 Elmer hit me with a wooden yoke. I could not lift my left arm. My sister took me to the hospital in Quetzaltenango. I told them I fell. *(Corroboration: hospital record, sister holds copies. Photos on client's phone dated Aug 2022.)* [GAP: what was the name of the hospital, and does the record show the date of admission? Ask client and pull the record.] 10. [GAP - do not draft yet: March 2023. Client can describe this in one sentence only. Mark for a separate session with the interpreter she is comfortable with; do not draft from the single sentence in the notes.] Corroboration map - ¶ 9: hospital records (sister, Quetzaltenango); phone photographs, Aug 2022. - ¶ 8: cousin in Oakland witnessed a later threat, not this one. Not corroboration for ¶ 8. Ask whether Elmer's sister can be reached. - ¶¶ 7, 11, 12: no corroboration and no explanation of why none exists. The declaration must say she never reported to police and why, in her own words. Silence here is what the government uses. Threshold issues (to check, not resolved here). - Entry June 2023, I-589 filed Sept 2024: timing issue. Confirm the operative filing date from the receipt and check the current standard for the exception you intend to plead. [UNVERIFIED - do not rely on any deadline stated here.] - 2019 expedited removal: pull the record; it affects both eligibility and what she said then. - Credible fear notes say "gang." The account says her partner's family. This must be addressed in the declaration in her words, not left for cross. Assumptions I made. That the notes are the complete account [verify]. That "Elmer's family" in ¶ 12 means the same people as ¶ 8 [verify - the notes are ambiguous]. That she never contacted police at any point [verify]. That the hospital in ¶ 9 is the public hospital in Quetzaltenango rather than a private clinic [verify - she gave no name]. Where this is weakest. ¶ 8 carries the nexus and is the one paragraph without a date. Pinning it is the highest-value thing you can do before filing. Second: ¶¶ 11–12 describe continuing harm with no corroboration and, as drafted, no explanation of why none exists. The silence is what DHS will use. What only you can decide. - *Where the declaration opens.* Straight chronology from ¶ 1 reads the way she actually tells it and gives the adjudicator a clean spine, but ¶ 8, the only paragraph in which a persecutor names her indigenous identity, lands eight paragraphs in, and the ANCHOR gap is the first thing DHS reads on that page. Opening with the household-control account puts nexus in front and lets background follow, and DHS will argue counsel reorganized the story. My read is chronology, because the anchor is fixable and the reorganization argument is not. - *March 2023.* Draft ¶ 10 from the one sentence she can say and file it: the record is complete, and she faces cross-examination on an event she cannot yet narrate. Or leave it out and reach it in direct testimony: the declaration holds together, and DHS asks why the worst thing that happened to her is absent from her sworn statement. This turns on whether she can sit through a second session before the individual hearing, which is a clinical judgment about your client, not a drafting call I can make. - *The credible fear inconsistency.* Address "gang" head-on inside the declaration in her own words, or hold it for redirect. Addressing it costs a paragraph and concedes on paper that the inconsistency exists; holding it lets DHS open on it. What would make this materially better. Ranked by impact: (1) the credible fear notes verbatim: "gang" versus her partner's family is the credibility fight in this case, and I will not draft ¶ 8 or the threshold section against a paraphrase; (2) a month for the ANCHOR in ¶ 8, from any source: Elmer's sister, the market calendar, a phone record; (3) the Quetzaltenango hospital record with the admission date on its face, which pins ¶ 9 independent of her memory; (4) the I-589 as filed, so nothing in the declaration contradicts what is already before the court.
Why this prompt is built the way it is
## Framework 1. **Chronology before drafting.** Every dated event in order first. Relative markers stay in the client's words and get flagged as anchors to pin down. 2. **One incident, one paragraph.** When, where, who was present, what was said, what was done, what the client did after. 3. **Nexus from the persecutors' mouths.** The insult, the demand, the accusation does the work. No statement in the record means the paragraph gets marked, not argued. 4. **The client's register.** Short sentences, the client's nouns, no terms of art. "Persecution" and "on account of" belong in the brief. 5. **Never supply a fact.** Thin spots get a bracketed question, not a plausible detail. A declaration is testimony the client swears to. 6. **Corroboration mapped paragraph by paragraph.** Each document to the paragraph it supports; each unsupported paragraph to the document or witness that could. 7. **Threshold issues listed, not resolved.** Filing timing, prior entries and removals, credible fear inconsistencies, bars: named, with what has to be checked. No standards from memory. 8. **Trauma-aware sequencing.** The hardest paragraphs get marked for a separate session, and the outline adapts to how the client actually communicates.