AHRC is Meeting an Unprecedented Need - Evidence Protecting Against Cruel Policies of these Times
AHRC is Meeting an Unprecedented Need - Evidence Protecting Against Cruel Policies of these TimesIncluding sending people to countries where they are strangers without meaningful connection
September 08, 2026.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We could not have imagine that this is where our work would lead - to meet the moment.
I want to tell you about an extraordinary change in the work of the African Human Rights Coalition, and why we urgently need your help to sustain it.
Since November, AHRC has submitted more than 80 country conditions expert reports in U.S. immigration cases. That averages approximately eight reports every month.
Before this past year, we were producing a maximum of approximately twelve reports in an entire year.
You have probably also read about another rapidly developing aspect of the current immigration landscape. The government is increasingly seeking to remove people to third countries, including individuals who have already been granted withholding of removal because a U.S. immigration court determined that they cannot lawfully be returned to a particular country where their life or freedom would be threatened.
Some of these individuals are now being sent, or threatened with removal, to countries where they have no nationality, no family, no community and no meaningful connection.
This creates an entirely new country conditions question. What happens to that person when they arrive? Will they be detained? Will they have access to legal protection or a functioning asylum system? Will their particular identity or circumstances expose them to persecution or other serious harm? And critically, is there a risk that the third country will simply return them to the very country from which the United States granted them protection in the first place?
These are questions that are increasingly becoming part of the work AHRC is being asked to undertake.
This means that our country conditions expertise must now extend beyond documenting persecution in an asylum seeker's country of origin. We are increasingly being asked to examine the safety and protection systems of proposed third countries, including the risk of detention, persecution, torture, discrimination and refoulement.
For LGBTQI people, these questions can be particularly urgent. Sending an LGBTQI person to another country where criminalization, hostility, violence or inadequate refugee protections exist is a travesty, sending them back to square one of the arduous journey they undertook seeking protection.
For AHRC, this has meant an extraordinary increase in workload.
Much of this work is unfunded.
Yet there is something very important that I want our donors to understand.
Our country conditions work and our humanitarian work are deeply connected.
AHRC understands conditions affecting LGBTQI people in Africa, not only through published reports, legislation, news articles and international human rights documentation. We know what is happening because people experiencing these conditions come to us every day.
They tell us about arrests. They tell us about attacks. They tell us when landlords throw them out, when families threaten them, when police refuse to protect them, when new legislation causes people to go into hiding, and when they are too frightened to seek medical care or report violence.
Through our humanitarian work, AHRC provides safe shelter, food, emergency medical assistance, relocation support, protection advocacy and other critical assistance to LGBTQI people in danger.
That work also gives us an immediate window into changing country conditions.
It allows us to identify patterns that may not yet appear in government reports or major human rights publications. It helps us understand the difference between what a law says on paper and what LGBTQI people are actually experiencing on the ground.
That makes our expert reporting unique, current and, we believe, particularly effective.
We could not have imagine that this is where our work would lead - to meet the moment.
If you have donated to AHRC, you have helped make this possible.
Your donations have helped keep people safely housed. You have helped provide food. You have helped someone receive medical treatment. You have helped move someone away from danger.
But your support has reached even further.
By enabling AHRC to continue this humanitarian work, you have helped sustain the network, knowledge and direct engagement that informs the country conditions evidence we are now providing in immigration courts across the United States.
And right now, we are struggling to keep up.
Across parts of Africa, the enactment and promotion of anti LGBTQI legislation, together with increasingly hostile political and religious rhetoric, is fueling fear, violence, displacement and requests for protection.
The number of people contacting AHRC for help is exceeding our capacity.
We cannot safely shelter everyone who needs shelter. We cannot fund every emergency relocation. We cannot meet every medical need.
And at the same time, requests for our country conditions expertise continue to arrive from attorneys representing people whose ability to remain in safety may depend upon the evidence placed before an immigration court.
This is why we need more than donations. We need people who will help us build the next stage of AHRC.
Please continue donating if you can, and becoming a regular monthly donor.
Please talk about AHRC.
If you know foundations or funding sources that should know about our work, please introduce us.
If your company or employer offers sponsorships, matching gifts, charitable partnerships or grants, please help us make that connection.
If you know philanthropists interested in LGBTQI rights, refugees, Africa, human rights, immigration or access to justice, please tell them about us.
If you represent an organization that could partner with AHRC, we want to hear from you.
An introduction can be enormously valuable.
We have reached a point where the need for AHRC's work has grown far beyond the resources available to sustain it.
More than 80 expert reports since November represents something we are enormously proud of. But behind those reports are people, attorneys working against extraordinary deadlines, asylum seekers fighting for protection, and LGBTQI people across Africa reaching out to us because they are frightened and need somewhere safe to turn.
To everyone who has donated, supported, shared our work, introduced us to others, or simply continued to believe in what we do, thank you.
You have helped AHRC broaden into something much more than an emergency humanitarian organization.
You have helped us turn what we learn through protecting people into evidence that can protect others.
Now we need your help to keep doing both.
With enormous gratitude,
Melanie Nathan
African Human Rights Coalition Executive Director AfricanHRC.org
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