/human-rights-first-asylum-be-a

Primary LanguageJavaScriptMIT LicenseMIT

Human Rights First - Asylum

Product Mission and Goals

Human Rights First (HRF) is a non-profit, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3), international human rights organization based in New York, Washington D.C., Houston, and Los Angeles. HRF works to link immigration attorneys and advocates with asylum seekers and provide those attorneys with resources to best represent their clients. Our application leverages historical data to better inform advocates of a judge’s past decisions. The hope is that advocates for asylum seekers can use our tools to tailor their arguments before a particular judge and maximize their client's chances of receiving asylum.

Getting Started

The base technologies are JavaScript, HTML and CSS. The frontend leverages React, the backend uses Express and PostgreSQL, the server runs on Heroku, and the authentication workflow runs on Okta. The frontend is hosted on AWS and the style guide/wireframe is located on Figma

Developer Instructions

  1. Clone both the front-end and back-end repositories to your machine. DO NOT FORK.
  2. From the backend directory, in your terminal:
    1. Create an environment file (.env) based on the sample .env and populate the environment variables (Migrate/Seed your local database)
    2. Make sure the .env is in your .gitignore
    3. Follow the Lambda instructions to set up the local PostgreSQL database
    4. Download the server dependencies by running npm install
    5. Migrate your tables by running npm run knex migrate:latest
    6. Seed your tables by running npm run knex seed:run
    7. Start up the server by running npm run watch:dev
  3. From the frontend directory in your terminal:
    1. Download the frontend dependencies by running npm install
    2. Start up the app by running npm start

Endpoints

Status

Method Endpoint Request Body Returns
GET / - { api: "up", timestamp }

Cases

Reference case schema:
{
    "case_id": "2ff54195-ce30-456c-be63-2a6c765bdce2",
    "user_id": "00ulzdrizE2yzxToH5d6",
    "case_url": "https://hrf-asylum-cases.s3.amazonaws.com/2ff54195-ce30-456c-be63-2a6c765bdce2.pdf",
    "case_number": "A094-216-526",
    "date": "1-24-2013",
    "judge": "1",
    "case_outcome": "Denied",
    "country_of_origin": "Mexico",
    "protected_grounds": "Social Group",
    "application_type": "initial",
    "case_origin_city": "Baltimore",
    "case_origin_state": "MD",
    "gender": "Male",
    "applicant_language": "Spanish",
    "indigenous_group": "Not Applicable",
    "type_of_violence": "Not Applicable",
    "appellate": false,
    "filed_in_one_year": false,
    "credible": true,
    "status": "approved",
    "uploaded": "1",
    "judge_name": "David W. Crosland"
}
Method Endpoint Request Body Returns
GET /cases - Reference case
GET /cases/:id - Reference case
GET /cases/:id/view-pdf - PDF file of the case
GET /cases/:id/download-pdf - PDF file of the case
GET /cases/:id/download-csv - case information as CSV format
PUT /cases/:id Reference case updatedCase

Data

Method Endpoint Request Body Returns
GET /data/viz/{stateCode} - A plotly result object.
GET /data/form - {judge_names, social_group_type, protected_grounds}
GET /data/upload - -

Judges

Reference judge schema:
{
    "judge_id": "1",
    "name": "David W. Crosland",
    "judge_county": "Baltimore",
    "judge_image": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/uifaces/faces/twitter/bfrohs/128.jpg",
    "date_appointed": "May 1997",
    "birth_date": "(unavailable)",
    "biography": "https://www.justice.gov/eoir/BaltimoreNatzCer03072012",
    "denial_rate": 51.8,
    "approval_rate": 48.2,
    "appointed_by": "Janet Reno"
}
Method Endpoint Request Body Returns
GET /judges - [Reference judge]
GET /judges/:name - {Reference judge, appointed_by, social_data, grounds_data, country_data, case_data}
GET /judges/all - [{Reference judge, appointed_by, social_data, grounds_data, country_data, case_data}]
GET /judges/:name/csv - judge information as CSV format
GET /judges/:judge_id/cases - judge visualizations from DS API

Profile

Reference profile schema:
{
    "id": "00ulzfj6nX72gu3Nh4d6",
    "email": "email@email.mail",
    "name": "username",
    "avatarUrl": null,
    "role": "user",
    "created_at": "2021-04-21T18:47:18.712Z",
    "updated_at": "2021-04-21T18:47:18.712Z"
}
Method Endpoint Request Body Returns
GET /profiles - [Reference profile]
GET /profiles/:id - Reference profile
GET /profiles/pending - [Reference profile]
GET /profiles/pending/:id - Reference profile
POST /profiles Reference profile {created profile}
POST /profiles/pending Reference profile {created profile}
PUT /profiles/:id Reference profile {updated profile}
DELETE /profiles/:id - {deleted profile}
DELETE /profiles/pending/:id - {deleted profile}
POST /profiles/:id/judge/:name - {message, judge_bookmarks}
DELETE /profiles/:id/judge/:name - {message}
POST /profiles/:id/case/:case_id - {message, case_bookmarks}
DELETE /profiles/:id/case/:case_id - {message}

Tags

Method Endpoint Request Body Returns
GET /tags/grounds - []
GET /tags/social - []

NewCase

Deprecated!!!

Reference pending case schema:
{
    "primary_key": "150",
    "user_id": "00ulzdrizE2yzxToH5d6",
    "case_id": "A094-216-526",
    "initial_or_appellate": false,
    "hearing_date": "",
    "judge": "3",
    "case_origin": "",
    "case_filed_within_one_year": true,
    "application_type": "initial",
    "protected_ground": "Not Applicable",
    "case_outcome": "",
    "nation_of_origin": "Mexico",
    "applicant_gender": "Male",
    "type_of_violence_experienced": "Not Applicable",
    "applicant_indigenous_group": "Not Applicable",
    "applicant_language": "Spanish",
    "applicant_access_to_interpreter": true,
    "applicant_perceived_credibility": false
}
Method Endpoint Request Body Returns
GET /newcase - [reference newcase]
POST /newcase Reference newcase {created_case}
POST /newcase/approve {id} {approved_case}
DELETE /newcase/:id - {message}

About

  • The Front End of the application allows Administrators to invite users and assign them as either an Administrator, Moderator, or User. This application uses Okta to handle third-party authentication for user sign up/login.(FUTURE DEVS: This can be checked in the back-end repo, look to the ProfileRouter for more information. For front-end, look to the 'HomeContainer' component.)
  • Administrators are able to oversee user management such as inviting users, editing any user's role, and deleting users. They may also perform all other tasks available to moderators.
  • Administrators are able to approve, deny, or edit uploaded asylum case data, as well as perform all other tasks available to users (previously named, Refugee Representatives).
  • Refugee Representatives, or standard users, are able to look up information on judges, look up information on previous asylum cases, upload case file information in bulk on asylum case rulings, and see accurate data visualizations.

Key Features

  • Added new home page which displays visualizations meant to showcase the current state of the database and, eventually, the state of asylum cases across the nation
  • Swapped many Material UI components to use ANT D instead
  • Moved many features to use modals to prevent from UX being disrupted by unnecessary page-hopping (Case Upload, add/edit a user, edit/add a faq, case details/edit case, and support contact form)
  • Combined related features in the sidebar, making for a smoother user experience
  • Style improvements all around

Still Needs Work

  • All alerts need to be swapped to ANT D notifications to match the case upload notifications
  • Change the accordions on the 'Manage Users' page to a table to account for a larger userbase and facilitate searching for admins/our stakeholders
  • All of the reloading pages (Occurs on any delete, update, or add functionality) should be switched to simply update the state rather than starting a full reload
  • The stakeholders have mentioned possibly wanting an alert system to be implemented, either within the app itself and/or as customizable email notifications. This could be added to the account settings as an option so users can toggle as they please
  • Stakeholders have also mentioned users might want to be able to favorite/subscribe to specific judges so they can watch for new cases to be added that might be most relevant to them
  • Add a comment when you deny or reject a case describing your decision (Add/reject case functionality still needs to be built out on 'Manage Cases')
  • The new hub page could use some more fine-tuning/additional visualizations
  • The back-end repo has a lot of unused functions that may need to be cleaned up
  • The swapping from Material UI components to ANT D components still needs to be completed
  • Sort out where the support contact form goes (Check backend ENV credentials)
  • The ability to request to join the app still needs work; currently, if the user isn't assigned a role at request, they may be able to access privateRoutes.
  • The PDF view for the my_cases table still needs work
  • Much discourse was had regarding judge ids and how to present them, this may need to be looked at deeper
  • May need to add a bridge table for protected_grounds
  • May need to reevaluate table relationships in handling judge to case relationships
  • Stakeholder mentioned the possibility of screening out users. Beyond deleting, implementing deactivating account might help solve for this problem.