SLS Immigrants’ Rights Clinic Celebrates Decade of Service and Teaching

SLS Immigrants’ Rights Clinic Celebrates Decade of Service and Teaching 1
From left, Atenas Burrola, JD ’14; Jayashri Srikantiah, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic; and David Watnick, JD ’15, pause after they argued a case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C.

It couldn’t have happened at a better time. Last week, in a class action case brought eight years ago by Stanford Law School’s Immigrants’ Right Clinic, along with co-counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Sidley Austin LLP, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gave a big victory to immigrants subjected to prolonged detention. The ruling could impact thousands of immigrants who are detained within the Ninth Circuit.

“This decision means that the government must consider alternatives to detention, such as home monitoring, before taking the extreme step of continuing an immigrant’s prolonged detention,” said Jayashri Srikantiah, a professor of law and director of the clinic at Stanford Law School (SLS). Under Rodriguez v. Robbins, the U.S. government must provide automatic bond hearings to immigrants it detains for prolonged periods of time, consider alternatives to detention and provide bond hearings every six months.

That victory and many other achievements will be heralded as the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic celebrates its 10th anniversary today with a luncheon featuring reflections by three alumni; a conversation between Srikantiah and Lucas Guttentag, an SLS professor who is currently serving as senior counselor with U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services; and an evening reception.

Among the SLS graduates who helped shape the Rodriguez case when participating in the clinic is Michael Kaufman, JD ’07, who is now a staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California working on this very issue. Other Stanford Law School students who worked on the case through the years include Stacy Villalobos, Matthew Verdin, and Jeff Middleton, who all earned their law degrees last June, as well as Mark Baller, JD ’08; Kimere Kimball, JD ’08; Eli Miller, JD ’11; and Erin Mohan, JD ‘11.

A National Leader

Founded in 2004, the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic is viewed nationally as a leader and expert on the complicated and ever-changing body of immigration law. It was one of the first in the country to adopt a “combined advocacy” model that means every student represents an individual client facing deportation and also works on a larger impact litigation or policy project.

In the last decade, about 100 SLS students have taken the clinic and have assisted nearly 100 individual clients who fall into three categories: immigrant survivors of domestic violence, those who have already served time for prior convictions and are seeking discretionary relief from deportation, and asylum seekers.

The number of asylum seekers has grown in recent years, due to more individuals fleeing violence and persecution in Mexico and Central America. Srikantiah co-authored an opinion piece that appeared in the Los Angeles Times last month that compared the refugee surge in Europe with the “refugee tragedy in our own country.”

In November 2014 the clinic released a report, ”Access to Justice for Immigrant Families and Communities,” profiling two studies the clinic conducted with the Northern California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice that found that detained immigrants with attorneys were three times more likely to win their deportation cases than those without attorneys. It also determined that two-thirds of detained immigrants have no legal representation at any point in their removal proceedings.

Moving the Needle

These systemic issues and other critical issues facing immigrant communities have led students in the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic to tackle a broad range of cutting-edge litigation as far up as the U.S. Supreme Court and policy projects that have had national impact. Among their achievements are:

  • Litigation spanning a decade that ensures the proper application of the categorical rule that governs when a prior offense becomes a ground for deportation or a reason that a noncitizen is denied relief from deportation
  • Current litigation in the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Seventh Circuits regarding whether a prior conviction should disqualify a noncitizen from eligibility for discretionary relief from removal
  • Litigation before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights regarding immigration and family unity, which included students appearing in Washington, D.C. before the commission
  • Multi-year local advocacy before probation chiefs, elected officials and judges to prevent the referral of youths and adults from juvenile and criminal justice system to immigration proceedings

The clinic has had a profound effect on many of the SLS students who have worked there. Juliet Brodie, associate dean for clinical education at SLS, explained, “The Immigrants’ Rights Clinic represents the very best in clinical education. In addition to being a nationally recognized expert in her field, Jayashri is a gifted teacher who has created a practice that not only advances justice for its clients, but also involves students in complicated and diverse legal problems.  This is no simple task, and SLS is so lucky to have Jayashri at the helm of this important work.”

Describing her experience in the clinic, Rachelle Navarro, JD ’11, said,  “The Immigrants’ Rights Clinic was an opportunity for me to give back and help others benefit from this system. Having found a program that fulfilled my passion, I became invested and engaged, and it has shaped the bulk of my pro bono practice since then.”

She added, “By providing students with the option to find work they love and can personally invest in, law schools can help shape the work of the next generation of lawyers.”