7/18/08
Immigration Law Clinic Teaches Students, Serves Community
The growing immigrant community of central Virginia is a population often in need of legal assistance and, just as often, without the ability to pay for it. Charlottesville's Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC) is the place many immigrants turn for help with visa problems, asylum and related issues. Law professor Doug Ford brings his Immigration Law Clinic (ILC) students to LAJC to learn first-hand about the issues those in the immigrant community face every day. More
4/21/08
Immigration Pro Bono Work Shows Students Hard Reality
With more than 37 million foreign-born people now living in the United States, immigration law is a growing field. Several pro bono programs at the Law School, ranging from asylum representation to outreach to agricultural workers, offer students the chance to help immigrants whose legal rights are the most vulnerable. More
3/28/08
Panel Discusses Challenges in Immigration Court System
Immigration courts have eliminated a once-hefty backlog, but in recent years the number of cases sent to a federal appeals court has grown substantially, according to a panel of experts who met at the Law School on March 12.
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2/15/08
Immigrant Rights Advocate Bauer ’90 Encourages Students to Continue March for Justice
Law School alumna Mary Bauer’s message to students at the Conference on Public Service and the Law was not one of personal sacrifice, but of personal fulfillment.
The first Virginia Law student to win a prestigious Skadden Fellowhip, Bauer has dedicated her life to serving those who are marginalized and mistreated. Now the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project, Bauer fights on behalf of immigrants in nine states in the Deep South. More
12/7/07
Faculty, Students Write Amicus Brief Challenging Standards on Torture
When Haitian refugee Emmanuel Dalegrand found himself before a U.S. immigration judge in Pennsylvania who had just ordered him deported to his native Haiti, things could not have looked worse. Having fled Haiti during the turmoil that followed the downfall of the Duvalier regime 25 years earlier, his parents and sister victims of the violence there, the 45-year-old Dalegrand was now without a family, home, or country. More
9/19/07
Debi Sanders ’78: Twenty Years on the Front Lines of Immigrant Advocacy
Debi Sanders ’78, founder of the Capitol Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition, spoke to Law School students about her experiences over the last twenty years on the front lines of immigrant advocacy. Sanders' coalition brings together a wide range of organizations in the metro Washington, D.C., area including law firms, religious charities and human rights advocates. More
4/16/07
Private Immigration Practice: Rewards, Frustrations, and Insights on Immigration Reform
Four experienced practioners spoke about making a living and a difference while doing business in immigration, asylum, deportation defense, and the myriad other permutations of immigration law. Panelists included David Z. Izakowitz, a partner at McGuireWoods concentrating on providing immigration law services to business clients; Edward Summers '03, an associate with Braverman & Lin, PC, and the Charlottesville Immigration Law Center, a full-service immigration practice; Yared Getachew '98, associate director of public service at the Law School and a former private practitioner in immigration law, specializing in asylum; and Dahlia French, an immigration attorney and international faculty advisor at the UVA International Studies Office, also formerly in private practice.
3/16/07
The I.C.—Adventures in Asylum
Noted immigration judge Paul Wickman Schmidt of Arlington Immigration Court and a former chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals discussed trends in asylum doctrine and the dynamics and challenges for all participants in an asylum case in immigration court.
2/26/07
U.S. Likely to Change Policy Barring Entry to HIV-Positive Immigrants
Under international pressure and desiring to bolster its role as leader in the global fight against AIDS, the U.S. government will likely change its immigration and visa policies that now restrict those with HIV from entering the country, said Phillip Nieburg, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Affairs in Washington, D.C. Nieburg, who co-authored a report on the subject, spoke at a Health Law Interest Group lunch Feb. 21. More
2/23/07
Scholars Discuss Ethics of U.S. Immigration Reform
A panel, moderated by law professor Kerry Abrams, co-director of UVA's Center for Children, Families and the Law, discussed the ethics of U.S. immigration reform. Panel members included
Naomi Mezey, a law professor at Georgetown University;
Susan Benesch,
a clinical fellow at Georgetown University Law School and a former director of the refugee program at Amnesty International USA;
Steven Camarota,
director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., and
E. Anne Matter,
dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts and Sciences. More
2/17/07
Love Thy Neighbor? The Ethical Underpinnings and Racial Politics of Immigration Reform
As the so-called “melting pot” of the world, the United States has been celebrated as a bastion of racial and cultural diversity. However, times of economic uncertainty and social transformation have complicated American ideas about national and racial identity and have raised moral dilemmas concerning America’s obligations to immigrants from neighboring countries, according to participants in a panel sponsored by the Conference on Public Service and the Law Feb. 17. More
10/25/06
Immigration Reform: What's Needed? What's Likely?
With panelists Doris Meissner, Former Commissioner, Immigration and Naturalization Service; Gerri Ratliff, Director of Verification Systems, US Citizenship and Immigration Services; and Marshall Fitz, Director of Advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Moderator: David Martin. Sponsored by: Immigration Program and J.B. Moore Society of International Law. More
10/25/06
Immigration Lawyering and Advocacy
With UVA's own Marshall Fitz, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Mr. Fitz will give an informal talk and answer questions on jobs and careers in immigration and legislative advocacy. Cookies will be served. Mr. Fitz leads AILA's education, lobbying and coalition-building efforts to further fair and reasonable immigration-related policies. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served on the Virginia Law Review. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Bruce M. Selya on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Mr. Fitz practiced immigration law in Washington, D.C., at Hogan & Hartson, LLP prior to joining AILA in 2003.
4/19/06
Fixing America's Broken Immigration System: The Debate in Congress
With Joseph Zogby '96, counsel to Sen. Richard J. Durbin. Co-sponsored by the Human Rights Program and the J.B. Moore Society of International Law.
3/30/06
Welcome to America: How Immigration Experiences and Policies Affect Children and Families
Sponsored by the Center for Children, Families, & the Law; the Law School; the College of Arts & Sciences; and the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law.
11/16/2005
Polygamy, Prostitution, and the Federalization of Immigration Law
Professor Kerry Abrams discussed her recent article, published in the April 2005 Columbia Law Review. She argues that the first restrictive federal immigration law, the Page Law of 1875, was an attempt to prevent Chinese women from migrating to the United States. By identifying and excluding Chinese women as prostitutes, the law prevented Chinese female immigration in general by defining them as outside the boundaries of legal marriage. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race and Law and the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association. More
5/4/05
Conference on Farmworker Rights and Immigration Legislation
Virginia’s foreign-born population increased almost 83 percent from 1990 to 2000, from about 311,000 to 570,000, a group whose needs legal aid and community services organizations are struggling to meet. Attorneys, advocates, and community officials gathered to discuss key issues facing the immigrant and farmworker community at a conference co-sponsored by the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society and the Public Service Center May 4 at the Law School. More
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