Congratulations to the students, faculty and staff of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (“IRC”), who filed an amicus brief this week on behalf of various immigrants’ rights organizations in Almanza-Arenas v. Holder, a case pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The brief, written by IRC students Pat Gutierrez (’14) and Mia Crager (’14), concerns the intersection of immigration and criminal law–the Ninth Circuit is considering whether a noncitizen should be precluded from securing humanitarian immigration relief based on his or her criminal record, even though his or her prior criminal records do not conclusively demonstrate that the noncitizen is subject to the legal bar.  In the brief, the Clinic argues on behalf of its clients that the Ninth Circuit should revisit an earlier ruling that was unfavorable to noncitizens, in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Moncrieffe v. Holder (another case in which the Mills Legal Clinic was deeply involved).

Pat and Mia were supervised by Clinic Director Professor Jayashri Srikantiah and Clinical Teaching Fellow Alison Kamhi. Allie Thrall provided excellent assistance.