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

Data Flow

This diagram shows the flow of data between frontend, backend, data science, and the database.

Architecture

This diagram shows the current state of the architecture.

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",
    "judge_id": 2,
    "url": "https://hrf-asylum-cases.s3.amazonaws.com/2ff54195-ce30-456c-be63-2a6c765bdce2.pdf",
    "number": "A094-216-526",
    "date": "1-24-2013",
    "judge_id": "1",
    "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_persecution": "Not Applicable",
    "appellate": false,
    "check_for_one_year": "no",
    "credibility": true,
    "created_at": "2021-06-12T18:07:53.229Z",
    "updated_at": "2021-06-12T18:07:53.229Z",
    "status": "approved",
    "comment": "Case pdf blurry. Upload clearer one" // Null
}

Method	Endpoint	Request Body	Returns
GET	/cases	-	[{Reference cases}]
GET	/cases/cases-by-state	-	[{state,int,int,int,int,int}]
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	{Reference case}
GET	/cases/pending/user/:id	-	[{Reference cases}]
GET	/cases/user/:id	-	[{Reference cases}]
GET	/cases/pending	-	[{Reference cases}]
PUT	/cases/status/:id	Status	Nothing
DEL	/cases/:id	-	{message}
PUT	/cases/comment	Reference case	{message}

Data

No schema; Not stored on database

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",
    "first_name": "David",
    "middle_initial": "W",
    "last_name":"Crosland",
    "county": "Baltimore",
    "image_url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/uifaces/faces/twitter/bfrohs/128.jpg",
    "date_appointed": "May 1997",
    "biography": "https://www.justice.gov/eoir/BaltimoreNatzCer03072012",
    "appointed_by": "Janet Reno"
}

Method	Endpoint	Request Body	Returns
GET	/judges	-	[{Reference judge}]
GET	/judges/:judge_id	-	[{Reference judge}]
GET	/judges/:judge_id/vis	-	[{Reference judge}]

Other endpoint exist but are broken beyond belief. Need serious rework/reimplementation

Profile

Reference profile schema:

{
    "user_id": "00ulzfj6nX72gu3Nh4d6",
    "email": "email@email.mail",
    "first_name":"John",
    "last_name":"Doe",
    "role_id": 3,
    "role_name": "user",
    "created_at": "2021-04-21T18:47:18.712Z",
    "updated_at": "2021-04-21T18:47:18.712Z",
    "approved": True
}

Method	Endpoint	Request Body	Returns
GET	/profiles	-	[Reference profile]
GET	/profiles/:id	-	Reference profile
GET	/profiles/pending	-	[Reference profile]
POST	/profiles	first/last, email	{message,created profile}
PUT	/profiles/:id	first/last, email	{message,updated profile}
DELETE	/profiles/:id	-	[message,Reference 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}

Roles

Reference roles schema:

{
    "role_id": 3,
    "role_name": "user"
}

Method	Endpoint	Request Body	Returns
GET	/roles	-	[Reference role]
GET	/roles/:role_id	-	Reference role
GET	/roles/:role_name	-	Reference role
PUT	/roles/:role_id	role_name	Reference role or {message}

FAQ

Reference FAQ schema:

{
    "faq_id":1,
    "question":"Why is the sky blue?"
    "answer": "Gases and particles in Earth's atmosphere scatter sunlight in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves."
}

Method	Endpoint	Request Body	Returns
GET	/faq	-	[faq]
GET	/faq/:id	-	faq
POST	/faq	-	{message,created faq}
PUT	/faq/:id	-	{updated faq}
DELETE	/faq/:id	-	{message}
POST	/faq/contact	name,email,message	{status}

UPLOADS

No schema; Not stored on database

Method	Endpoint	Request Body	Returns
POST	/upload	-	{id}
POST	/upload/scrap/:case_id	Reference case	Nothing
POST	/upload/:case_id	Reference case	Nothing

Notifications

Reference notification schema:

{
    "notification_id": 1,
    "title": "Case Approved",
    "text": "Admin Kaitlyn approved your request for a the case you uploaded.",
    "read": false,
    "user_id": "8",
}

Method	Endpoint	Request Body	Returns
GET	/notifications/:profile_id	-	[{notification_1}, {notification_2}]
GET	/notifications/:profile_id/:notification_id	-	[{notification}]
PUT	/notifications/:profile_id/:notification_id	-	Notification {notification_id} has been marked as read

These are the only invites the team deemed necessary for endpoint access. Notifications will be created in the individual components as needed.

DEPRECATED

TAGS

A random assortment of non labeled, non connected words on the database. Needs a serious overhaul if implementation is needed.

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.

What Has Been Done:

• 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
• Changed the accordions on the Manage Users page to a table
• Filtering indication for the Judges and the Cases Tables
• Comments implemented from Administrator's rejection of a case is sent to the user
• Client-side form validation
• Styling of Login Page
• Export Report on Saved Cases can be downloaded
• Updated Styling
• Optimizing backend
• Implementation of data normalization

Still Needs Work

• Home Page needs to accommodate for custom visualization like a form
• The ability to request to join the app still needs work see Trello Board
• Groundwork has been laid for in-app notification to work
• BE for notifications needs to be built
• Stakeholders are deciding on email notification means tbd not super important right now
• 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
• Sort out where the support contact form goes (Check backend ENV credentials)
• The PDF view for the my_cases table still needs work
• Individual Judge Page needs work such
• Judge Management needs implementation like ability to add or delete judge
• BE needs to create a judges table by creating a many-to-many in handling judge to case relationships
• BE delete protected_grounds and social_tags tables
• Manage Users Page has buttons that are not functioning properly
• For Case Uploads:
  1. BE needs to pull from table ds_cases
  2. Look into work queue system to rate limit the amount of uploads being performed at once
• On Cases, user needs to be able to filter the cases like a stacked search
• Judge API currently uses first name to visualize judge. Should be refactored to query by ID. Currently returns JSON object for Plotly use in Front-End.