The Immigration Clinic is a course in which eight students per year are permitted to enroll. Students interested in the Immigration Clinic must apply and go through the Clinic selection process that takes place in the spring of each year. The maximum enrollment in the Immigration Clinic is eight students each academic year. However, because of ongoing client needs, two of those eight students will be selected to participate in the Immigration Clinic for an entire calendar year – from May following their second year to May of their third year. Those two students will receive commensurate academic credit for participating for an entire year. Students enrolling in the Immigration Clinic, under close faculty supervision, represent low-income clients with immigration problems. Most of the work is in the areas of deportation defense, family-based immigrant visas, asylum applications, Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions, and post-conviction claims based on ineffective assistance of counsel due to failure to advise of immigration consequences of criminal proceedings, although other types of immigration matters may be assigned to students from time to time at the discretion of the supervising faculty member. Students taking Immigration Clinic for an entire year may not take another Clinic. Students in Immigration Clinic can expect to engage in the following types of activities: factual development and analysis, frequent client interviewing and counseling, preparation of immigration applications and supporting documentation, attendance with clients at immigration interviews, appearing in Immigration Court on behalf of clients, state and federal court appearances (as dictated by clients’ legal needs), legal analysis and planning, frequent creation of written work product (including but not limited to legal memoranda, briefs, letters, and so forth), analysis and resolution of professional ethics issues, and other skills necessary to function effectively as lead counsel on a variety of immigration cases.
Expectations
All students except those interested in the Immigration Clinic will be selected by an application process held during the pre-registration period in the spring. In other words, students interested in taking any Clinic other than the Immigration Clinic during the summer, fall or spring must apply and register during the registration period held in the spring. The application deadline is announced in the Sounding Block and by email to student listservs. To apply for a Clinic, students complete an application form and other required documents online. At the time the application deadline is announced, forms will be made available to students so they can complete them. The Dean's Office emails the selection results to students selected. Students in the Immigration Clinic are selected through an application process conducted in February of each year.
Students may only take one Clinic in any one semester; however, students wishing to be considered for more than one Clinic during the course of a year should sign up to be considered for multiple Clinics (in whcih case, students must rank their Clinic preferences). The preference given is taken account of to the extent possible. This is not the case for students taking the Immigration Clinics. Students taking the Immigration Clinic are not eligible to take any other Clinics.