Major Project for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic

Immigrants’ Rights Clinic students, Marisa Diaz (’13) and Ying Wang (’13) recently completed a significant advocacy project in collaboration with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and Silicon Valley De-Bug to develop a presentation for the San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women on the issue of probation officers reporting youth to immigration authorities.  In order to research the harm that reporting youth to immigration authorities causes to youth and families, Marisa and Ying met with juvenile defense attorneys, community organizations, and immigration attorneys.  Marisa and Ying synthesized their research and developed a presentation to ask the Commission to help stop the practice.  Marisa delivered the presentation on May 22, 2012, and the Commission was so moved by the presentation that it agreed to hold a public hearing on the issue.

Marisa and Ying were supervised by Clinic Director Jayashri Srikantiah, Alison Kamhi, Clinical Teaching Fellow, and Anna Welch, Cooley Godward Kronish Clinical Teaching Fellow. Allie Thrall provided excellent legal assistance on the project.