By Joey Michalakes, 2014 Cleary Gottlieb Summer Fellow This week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) issued a decision that clarifies the type of legal advice that must be given to immigrant defendants in criminal proceedings. Commonwealth v. DeJesus involved a 30-year-old legal permanent resident charged with trafficking cocaine who pled guilty to the lesser…
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via: The Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs BlogThe Massachusetts Bar Association will honor Gerald Wall with an Access to Justice Award, for his exemplary legal skills and service to the community. He is a Clinic Supervisor at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and Senior Attorney at the Greater Boston Legal Services. Gerald…
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“There is nowhere on Earth like the place where we work. It is beautiful beyond telling: harsh, vast, mountainous, remote, rugged, unforgiving, every cliché you can think of and more. I have been humbled countless times by the incredible selflessness and courage of the people that I have met there, and I have been driven…
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John Willshire-Carrera and Nancy Kelly, Co-Managing Directors of HIRC at GBLS, with their students and colleagues, continue their work on behalf of asylees and immigrants. Rooted in Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS), the largest legal services program in New England, the Clinic works “from the bottom up,” representing individuals and communities, as well as advocating…
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The case of Jose Fuentes-Colocho highlights the complexities of cases involving youth fleeing gang violence. Fuentes-Colocho sought refuge from El Salvador as a teenager after being repeatedly persecuted by Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). MS-13 is no longer just a street gang; it is now the organized insurgency which destabilizes El Salvador’s political scene. It controls municipalities…
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A woman suffering severe domestic violence at the hands of her husband fled Uganda and sought asylum in the U.S. With HIRC’s Albert M. Sacks Clinical Teaching and Advocacy Fellow Emily Leung and HIRC students Mevlude Akay (LLM ‘14) and Katie McCarthy (JD ‘15) arguing her case in the Boston Immigration Court, this client was…
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By Brittany Adams, MTS ’14 As a second-year graduate student at Harvard Divinity School in the Master of Theological Studies program, I have had the privilege to volunteer at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic where I have developed a deeper, more nuanced understanding of immigration and refugee law and the critical, rewarding work that…
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Applications are now being accepted for the 2014 Summer Legal Internship at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC). The legal intern will work on cases involving direct representation of individuals from around the world seeking asylum and other humanitarian protections. The legal intern may also work on appellate and policy advocacy at the…
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via: The Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs blog By: Geehyun Sussan Lee, J.D. ’15 One of my least favorite words is “alien”. Growing up as a 1.5 generation American, I generally did not like any words or phrases that emphasized my liminality, my not-quite-enough-ness. However, many of those other words and phrases also…
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via: The Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs blog By: Elizabeth Gettinger, J.D. ’15 I arrived in Tel Aviv in early January knowing very little about Israeli asylum law but with some sense that the issue was politically divisive. My fellow HLS students and I spent our first few days at the Clinic for…
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