I never expected to put my legislative advocacy skills to work in academia until the presidential election, when immigration issues changed overnight. Along with more than 300 students at Harvard Law School, I joined the Immigration Response Initiative, volunteering to help HIRC and advocacy groups.
Earlier this week, the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC) co-authored a brief to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) on the “material support” bar to asylum, arguing that the word “material” must be given independent meaning in order to ensure that victims of terrorism are not unfairly denied humanitarian protection.
When my clinical instructor, Sabi Ardalan, told me about an opportunity to present at a workshop at UMass Boston (UMB) on the implications of the recent executive orders, I immediately signed up. Remembering that sense of hopelessness I felt as a non-citizen, I thought that empowering immigrants with knowledge of the executive orders and their rights was one of the best ways I could contribute.
HIRC’s Deborah Anker will moderate the 8th annual FDR memorial lecture, entitled “Formulating a new good neighbor policy.” The lecture will bring together Republican entrepreneur Solomon Trujillo and Democratic former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, co-founders of the Latino Donor Collaborative, to renew FDR’s call for thoughtful cross-cultural engagement.
The Crimmigration Clinic at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program recently filed an amicus curiae brief in support of a lawsuit arguing that it is unlawful for state law enforcement agencies to arrest and detain an individual in Massachusetts solely for immigration enforcement purposes.
Despite the glaring absence of the U.S. government officials, we civil society organizations had productive conversations with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Malene and I testified that the executive orders greatly curtail asylum seekers’ ability to meaningfully pursue their claims for protection and increase the risk of deportation to countries where they face persecution or torture.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has granted a request filed by the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC) to participate in a hearing on the impact of President Trump’s Executive Orders on human rights in the United States.
The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC) filed on Thursday an amicus curiae brief in support of a lawsuit that seeks, among other things, to prevent the Trump administration from lowering the number of refugees that can be allowed into the country. The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the International…
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Earlier this week, the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC) took the issue of Donald Trump’s executive orders to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Commission), calling for an emergency hearing to discuss the impact of the orders on the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States.
Applications are now being accepted for the 2017 Summer Fellowship at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. The Fellow will work primarily on cases of individuals seeking asylum and other humanitarian protections, as well as on policy advocacy and appellate litigation. Applicants are requested to submit to Jordana Arias (hirc@law.harvard.edu) the following materials: a…
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