Dan Van Lehman has a bachelor's degree from Eastern Illinois University and a master’s from Cornell University where his thesis advocates refugee protection through intra-Africa resettlement. He worked for the U.N.H.C.R. in the 1990s in Dadaab, Kenya as a refugee camp field officer and later in Mozambique as a resettlement consultant. Since 2015, Mr. Van Lehman has collaborated on Somali minority protection issues with the United Nations Security Council’s Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea and the U.N. Mission in Somalia. Dan Van Lehman has testified as an expert witness in criminal and immigration court concerning Somali minorities. Mr. Van Lehman speaks Swahili, which he learned as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya. Dan Van Lehman has published on Somali minority demographics and human rights including: The Somali Bantu, Their History and Culture; Somalia’s Southern War: The Fight over Land and Labor in Southern Somalia; and Removals to Somalia in Light of the Convention Against Torture: Recent Evidence from Somali Bantu Deportees; published in Georgetown Immigration Law Journal (2019), Volume 33:3, which can be accessed at Georgetown Law's website.