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The Immigration Clinic focuses on representing immigrants facing deportation in proceedings before the Immigration Court and Board of Immigration Appeals and in related federal court litigation. The clinic also represents clients seeking benefits before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, such as U and T visas for survivors of crime and trafficking and Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions, while defending clients in their deportation cases. In recent years, many of our clients have been asylum seekers from Central America. However, we have clients from all over the world. Recently, we have had clients from Cameroon, Pakistan, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Almost all of the clinic’s clients have been in immigration detention at some point, and every semester we handle a few cases of individuals who are still in detention.
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The students in the Immigration Clinic take on the primary responsibility for the representation in their cases. That means that the student representatives meet with clients independently and serve as “first chair” at hearings, including final merits hearings akin to trials. All students in the Immigration Clinic have extensive contact with their clients so there is significant opportunity to develop interviewing and communication skills. All students will also engage with legal analysis of complicated immigration concepts. Students will engage with the larger policy questions raised by the immigration systems that their clients are trying to navigate.
For our cases in Immigration Court, student representatives develop oral advocacy, brief writing, and other trial skills. Final merits hearings in Immigration Court are half-day or day-long trials with witness examination, evidentiary admissions, and closing arguments.
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All students are assigned to teams, almost always teams of two (occasionally teams of three). Those teams that will be handling a merits hearing will typically only have one case assigned for the entire semester. Teams that do not have a merits hearing will generally have two to four cases assigned. These cases will have some important adjudication that needs to take place during the semester. The work might involve submission of an application for a visa for trafficking or other violence survivors, advocacy seeking release from detention, or a hearing in family court for a child who qualifies for immigration status after abandonment, abuse or neglect. Students in the clinic will work in a collaborative and interdisciplinary setting. The clinic hosts undergraduate student interns who support case work as well as social work student interns.
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There are no prerequisites for the Immigration Clinic. Some students find it useful to take Immigration Law before or contemporaneously with the Immigration Clinic, but there is no requirement that you do so. The clinic syllabus includes classes on substantive law and procedure early in the semester so that student are prepared to handle cases effectively.
There is no language requirement for participation in the clinic. In pairing students, the clinic looks at language skills. There will often be at least one member of the team who can communicate in the client’s own language. The clinic also has several undergraduate interns who can assist with translation and interpretation and has developed a pool of volunteer translators/interpreters as well.
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Previous students assess that they spend about 10-20 hours per week on clinic casework. The time commitment will depend on the demands of the assigned case and any deadlines set by the Immigration Court or immigration agencies. Generally, students spend an increasing number of hours on their cases as the semester progresses since the major adjudicative moments happen near the end of the semester. Finally, the clinic holds two 90-minute classes per week. We have extra class hours in the first weeks of the semester for orientation.