Immigrants’ Rights Clinic students, Jessica Spradling (’11) and Rufat Yunayev (’11) represented an undocumented man from Central America who was kidnapped, assaulted, tortured and held hostage by a criminal gang for several days on the U.S.-Mexico border.  Jessica and Rufat’s advocacy on behalf of their client included filing a U visa application, which required them to convince a certifying police officer that their client was helpful in the investigation and prosecution of crimes against him.  Jessica and Rufat spent countless hours documenting their client’s experience – they worked with expert witnesses to document the effects of the abuse on their client’s psychiatric state; they obtained police and court records; and they conducted multiple interviews with their client and various expert and lay witnesses.  IRC learned this week that the Department of Homeland Security approved their client’s U visa application, permitting him to remain in the United States with his family and eventually apply to become a U.S. permanent resident.

IRC students are supervised by Professor Jayashri Srikantiah and Anna Welch, Cooley Godward Kronish Clinical Teaching Fellow.  The Clinic also relies on the excellent work of Octavio Gonzalez, legal assistant.