Immigrant's Rights Clinic

The Immigrants’ Rights Clinic is a field placement clinic in which students are supervised by outside immigration law practitioners and work directly with clients facing immigration issues (including defense against removal proceedings, seeking political asylum, and pursuing U.S. citizenship). Students may handle adversarial hearings before immigration judges and participate in policy reform projects on immigration and refugee issues.

Classroom Component: Operates in a seminar manner, focusing on case strategy and analysis, skills and the representation of clients.

Fieldwork Component: Students work primarily with local immigrants’ rights projects involving law reform or litigation. Students directly engage in client interviewing and counseling, case planning and legal writing, and preparation of clients for hearings before immigration judges or immigration examiners.

Course Instructor: The course is taught by Professor Boswell.

Open to: 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th semester JD students, LLM students and MSL students. Foreign language ability is helpful but not required. It is not possible to concurrently enroll in the same semester in both this course and another live-client clinic, legal or judicial externship, or the Startup Legal Garage.

6 units: 2-unit non-GPA graded class component and 4-unit fieldwork component, graded pass-fail. All 6 units count as experiential.