Reflective Essays

Prologue

by Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Esq. 

I am deeply honored to publish Back Into the Future and also grateful to my former students who took the time to share their personal stories. My inspiration for this project came from my students and the clients we have served over the last decade in the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (Clinic) at Penn State Law in University Park. Today, many former students work as immigration attorneys in large law firms, solo practitioners, non-profit organizations and in the federal government.

The mission of the clinic is to advance immigrants’ rights through legal excellence, advocacy, education, and collaboration with key stakeholders on immigration law and policy. My teaching goal is for students to understand the policy, politics, and law of immigration, and relationship between the three. Students work on one or more of the following types of cases and projects: policy products on behalf of institutional clients; outreach and education with the community and local municipality; and legal support in individual cases. Clinic cases and projects include a list of the specific learning goals I have for students who work on them. 

The structure of the Clinic has evolved and expanded over the last decade. When I first launched the Clinic, it was a “100% policy” Clinic as I was fortunate to have several national organizations interested in serving as clients. Students have in some cases traveled to Washington, D.C. to present recommendations on the reports they have drafted to stakeholders such as the White House, Congress, and Department of Justice. In the early years, students also traveled each semester to York County Prison, York Immigration Court and the local not for profit to learn and reflect on each of these experiences. Visit our website to review a list of the Clinic’s publications.

Over the years, the Clinic has become increasingly more involved in the community and in individual cases. In the community, the Clinic is a centerpiece for information on immigration. The Clinic has worked closely with the Police Department, Mayor, Borough of State College, local women’s resource center, and the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center on outreach and education projects. Clinic students have also prepared and delivered first-rate Continuing Legal Education programs to members of the Centre County Bar Association. Since the 2016 election, the Clinic has been a critical voice in providing accurate and timely information about immigration policy change. Since 2012, the Clinic has played an important role in screening individuals and families who may qualify for relief under programs like DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The Clinic has conducted group rights presentations to immigration detainees held in Clinton County Jail. Our website provides a deeper description of our work in the community. Students have worked on a handful of individual cases. For example, the Clinic was assigned a detained pro bono case by the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center. Students were involved in interviewing the client several times, putting together the legal case and information, securing and searching for a medical expert who would travel to the jail and evaluate the client, among other things. Our website includes testimonials by clients as well as testimonials by students.

I hope these essays showcase some of the projects and cases students have worked on during their time at the Clinic and the impact they have made to individuals, institutions, and the community. Importantly, these essays also reveal how the authors’ personal experiences have shaped how they entered law school and how they define themselves as lawyers. I hope readers can taste the sweat, blood, and heart of gold it takes to work in the immigration space — especially in a climate of ever changing policy and heightened uncertainty about the future. Beyond the essays, are photographs by each author to place a face on a story as well as selected excerpts of clinic projects and cases over the last decade. The volume ends with a closing by Dean Hari M. Osofsky to whom I am grateful for building excellence at Penn State Law.

This volume would not have been possible without a village of support. Thank you to Angela Lombardo and Ashley Medina for editing early drafts; Rebecca Mattson and her team for editorial assistance; Ally Laird, Open Publishing Program Specialist and Penn State University Libraries Open Publishing for publishing this edition; and last but not least, former students who agreed to and drafted essays.

This volume is dedicated to the partners and clients of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.

 

Citation: Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Prologue, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration0

Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Esq.

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia is the Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar and Clinical Professor of Law at Penn State Law. She is an expert on immigration law, with research focusing on prosecutorial discretion’s role in immigration law, and the intersections of race, national security, and immigration. She teaches doctrinal courses on immigration and asylum, and refugee law. She is also the founder/director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, where she supervises students.

Photograph of Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Esq.

Thankful for the Opportunity to Serve the Greater Good

by Richard Lupinsky

Growing up, I never dreamed about going to law school to become an attorney; however, a combination of experiences in the public sector took me to law school, which fit my innate ambition of working for the “greater good.”

Most notably, my first experience working in the public service sector resulted from the influence of my grandfather having fought in the Battle of the Bulge in France and Luxemburg during World War II, and my father having piloted Army helicopters in the U.S. and Honduras. Like them, I enlisted in the Army while still in high school and served in the infantry as a paratrooper for four years in the 82nd Airborne Division. I think soldiers are great, in part, because they come from everywhere: a hodgepodge of different social and economic backgrounds, sharing the commonality of voluntarily leaving home to serve together and of a willingness to risk their lives for the sake of one another. This comradery, which materializes out of shared suffering, forms a special bond. It is the times out in the field, ruck marching, on-guard duty, picking up cigarette butts on a police call, out in the rain and cold or in the heat, dirty, tired and sick of it all, making jokes and commiserating as Soldiers do, that makes military life so endearing. I did not know it at the time, but those impressions would eventually play an unquestionable factor in the trajectory of my future — now current — legal career.

After college, I served in a much different capacity; namely, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. For two years, I taught biology and health education as a secondary school teacher in a small, rural village in Tanzania. It was there that I first experienced living in the developing world. I witnessed how Tanzanians overcame, with a certain resigned dignity, the challenges of chronic underdevelopment and a systemic lack of infrastructure, education, employment, and government services. My Tanzanian friends and colleagues, who otherwise had very little in the way of material things, were nevertheless always eager to greet me with “karibu” to welcome me into their home. They were always ready to share a bowl of rice and beans and a cup of super sweet scalding hot chai. We sat on the floor, with the yellow glow of a gas lamp casting shadows on the wall or on a back porch quietly sharing stories under a canopy of stars brilliant and undiminished by electric light. It was in these small moments that I came to appreciate that trying to accomplish some big project was not the focus. It was about being willing to share yourself, your time, knowledge, and humor, in an effort to leave a positive impression on someone’s life. This all reinforced my belief in service to help make the world better than I found it, a little more reasoned and just.

It was my father who first suggested to me that law school could provide a good foundation for a career in public service. With that seed sewn firmly in mind and knowing next to nothing about the law, I applied to law school. In my law school application essay, I referenced Pennsylvania Middle District Judge John E. Jones III’s decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District,[i] which was announced the year before. Judge Jones ruled that the teaching of “intelligent design” in public school was unconstitutional because it violated the Establishment Clause. It was a great victory, specifically for education in science for American students, as well as for upholding the principles of the Enlightenment in general terms and philosophy. If the legal system could provide lawyers with the skills and knowledge to achieve just outcomes like Kitzmiller, I thought law school might just be a good fit for me.

During my time at law school, I first became drawn to Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (“Clinic”) because it seemed like a good way to help the underserved. My roommate had nothing but great things to say about the Clinic and the Director, Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia. I worked with another law student under the guidance and supervision of Professor Wadhia, in collaboration with the Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center and Human Rights First. Together we reviewed over three thousand Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decided in a three-year period and garnered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Asylum seekers, after arriving in the United States, have one year to apply for asylum.[ii] Asylum is a type of protection available to those physically present in the United States who have suffered or face a well-founded fear of persecution for specific reasons at the hands of the government or a group of persons that government is unwilling or unable to control.[iii] Their applications can be rejected on the basis of the deadline alone, unless they can demonstrate one of two exceptions to the filing deadline.[iv] Our job was to determine what effects the one-year application deadline had on the outcome of those asylum applications. We found that the BIA denied asylum applications for a large number of refugees fleeing prosecution based on the deadline alone and that the BIA violated congressional intent by failing to apply the deadline in a “flexible and rational manner.”

Our work culminated in the publication of a white paper, which we presented in Washington, D.C. to the Department of Justice. Having the opportunity to work with other public interest immigration groups gave me firsthand insight into how collaboration occurs remotely over a period of a few short months. The project was more than just an academic exercise. The process of taking a germ of an idea, requesting information from the government, analyzing the data through shared collaboration, formulating clear findings, and generating a comprehensible resource that others could use for education, practical application, and social change was really inspiring and professionally satisfying. This project illustrated for me that the application of law is not always done to the original intent of the drafters. It can be detrimental to the very parties the law is designed to protect, especially for those who lack the means to hire professional legal representation. The project reinforced the importance of pro bono work. If some of these asylum seekers had professional legal help at the outset, I suspect that many of their applications would have been timely or met an exception.

I was proud to work for the Clinic under the tutelage of Professor Wadhia. I felt that the Clinic’s mission coincided with my ideals developed in the Peace Corps in wanting to serve the underserved and make the world a bit more just. Professor Wadhia’s professional standards are more demanding and rigorous than the most zealous Army drill sergeant. She balanced a serious demeanor with patience and a genuine concern for my professional growth. I remember pulling long hours in the clinic and at least one all-nighter towards the end of the semester when the final draft of the paper was due. She pushed me beyond my limits and made me a better researcher, writer, and more exacting attorney in the process. Her personal recommendation also put me over the top of other job seekers and helped me land my first employment opportunity outside of law school.

The Pennsylvania Bar examiners happened to publish the list of successful test takers on the same day I received my first full time legal job offer. Needless to say, that was a good day. My first job was a clerkship with the Honorable Jolene Grubb Kopriva, President Judge in Blair County, Pennsylvania, who was also the first female judge in the history of Blair County. As a clerk for a Common Pleas Court, I got to see firsthand how the law operates in a rural Pennsylvania jurisdiction. I researched, drafted opinions, and performed a myriad of other tasks and responsibilities. Under the patient mentorship of Judge Kopriva, I became an even better legal writer. A clerkship is great for getting to see a side-by-side comparison of best and worst practices of attorneys in brief writing, in the courtroom, and in professional social situations. It was during my time as a law clerk that I realized there was something I had been missing for a long period of time. I missed wearing the uniform and getting to work alongside soldiers. After a long absence, I decided to offer up my education and experience and jump back into military life by applying to be an Army Judge Advocate in the Pennsylvania National Guard.

As a Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) officer, the military trains you to work and rotate through different areas of the law required by the armed forces. These focus areas are, for all intents and purposes, the same as most civilian legal practice areas. These include criminal prosecution and defense in Courts-Martial, administrative law, contract litigation, international law, legal assistance, and commander’s legal counsel. JAGs also have unique legal responsibilities to serve as legal counsel to victims of rape and sexual assault as well as to serve in the theatre of combat. JAGs can serve either on Active Duty or in a Reserve or National Guard component.  I am a commissioned JAG officer in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

After graduating from both the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School at the University of Virginia and the Direct Commission Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, my first assignment was to represent commanders at administrative separation board hearings. I argued the merits of separation and type of discharge characterizations for soldiers accused of serious misconduct. I trained and performed my periodic JAG obligations while simultaneously maintaining my clerkship, until finally accepting a full-time mobilization to Fort Campbell, Kentucky with the 101st Airborne Division. As a legal team, JAGs and paralegals physically train together every morning, participate in weekly professional development trainings, and socialize in both official and unofficial settings. It all makes for a close-knit legal office and the type of legal environment I was looking for. I worked primarily as a Legal Assistance Attorney, providing free legal advice and advocacy on behalf of soldiers, dependents, and retirees in our Client Services office.

At the Fort Campbell Client Services Office, we provided legal counsel, generated court documentation, and advocated for a variety of civil and military legal issues ranging from divorce, custody, step-parent adoption, landlord-tenant disputes, contracts, wills, medical, and other powers of attorney, as well as written rebuttals to the various flavors of military non-judicial punishment and liability for property loss. I worked with several other JAG attorneys, paralegals, and civilian attorney counterparts in our Clients Services office.

I met with an average of approximately five clients a day devoting to each up to an hour or more of consultation. I think the best part was that every day I met with colorful clients with interesting and sometimes heartbreaking legal issues. I remember sending a demand letter[v] to convince a seamstress to finally send my client her order of over $500 for denim jean skirts that had been languishing for over a year. I had another client inquire if there was any legal possibility of getting out of a home mortgage for failure to disclose a known deficiency because he claimed his house was haunted. I successfully negotiated a large medical bill down to a reasonable sum for a client whose child’s injury occurred during a lapse in insurance coverage. I traveled to local hospitals and hospices and drafted and executed several wills for terminally ill clients. As the step-parent adoption attorney, I created step-parent adoption packets for over fifty client-couples for both Kentucky and Tennessee adoptions, which included both male and female same-sex couples. Like any firm, we could not represent everyone nor were we always successful in our efforts. But the importance is that we were an available resource for many people, soldiers and civilians alike, who otherwise did not have the means to hire a private attorney. We represented folks who might have just gone it alone or resigned themselves to never achieving a resolution to their legal matter.

The client-centered advocacy skills I learned in law school and in the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic definitely prepared me to be an effective advocate for the underserved. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to serve.


[i] Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Pa. 2005).

[ii] Questions and Answers: Asylum Eligibility and Applications, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (Sept. 21, 2017), https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/questions-and-answers-asylum-eligibility-and-applications.

[iii] Immigration and Nationality (McCarran) Act § 208, 8 U.S.C.A. § 1158 (2009).

[iv] Questions and Answers: Asylum Eligibility and Applications, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (Sept. 21, 2017), https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/questions-and-answers-asylum-eligibility-and-applications.

[v] A letter stating a legal claim and making a demand for restitution or performance of some obligation, in response to the recipient’s perceived legal wrong or breach.

 

Citation: Richard Lupinsky, Thankful for the Opportunity to Serve the Greater Goodin Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration1

Richard Lupinsky

Captain Richard Lupinsky is a U.S. Army JAG attorney currently serving in Kuwait. As a trial counsel, his area of focus is military justice, which includes advising commanders, administrative discipline, working closely with criminal investigators, and prosecuting courts martial.

Class of 2010
Richard Lupinsky

One Door Opened All the Rest — Eternally Grateful

by Susham Modi

It would be an illuminating experience if everyone looked back at their law school admission essays and thought: Have we been true to ourselves? Maybe this is an elusive question as we were all less experienced about how the real world accurately operated. I, for one, now know just how little I knew before entering law school. On the other hand, if we do not reach for ideals to make the world better, then what’s the point of reaching? Before attending law school, I knew I wanted to attend in order to assist the underserved.

The single greatest event that created this deep desire was the last time I visited my family in India, during my undergraduate studies. On the road to visiting one of my uncles in India, we saw extreme poverty through our car window. The main theme of my law school admission essay was seeing this poverty and wanting to attend law school to right the injustices in this world. In my law school admissions essay, I mentioned the vivid memory I had of seeing children who were starved to the point of being able to see every bone in their body, had no shoes as they labored on unpaved roads, lived homeless with just a piece of cloth propped up by wooden sticks as their shelter and bathed in sewers due to lack of access to clean water. No one deserved this type of lifestyle. My immediate reaction to these types of scenes was that these kids had fundamental human rights, and not one of those children could be expected to climb out of such extreme poverty by themselves.

It was this idea and reaction that triggered my specific interest in international human rights and an extreme desire to apply to law school. Unfortunately, at age 21, I had little understanding of what the meaning of international human rights law was, or the degree to which it was enforced in the international community. I wanted to pursue something related to international human rights that went beyond mission statements made by the United Nations (UN) or international bodies which often had great gestures but little enforcement authority. It was a natural evolution that I discovered asylum and refugee law—which in the United States was codified by Congress through the Refugee Act of 1980.[i] Asylum law recognizes that no matter who you are, a person who has been or will be severely harmed, tortured or killed if returned to their home country should be protected.[ii] The principle value of American society is that everyone deserves the right to pursue freedom, which can only be done when someone is free from persecution.

As a law student, I was naturally drawn to the Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (“Clinic”) and, more particularly, asylum law. In 2009, I was fortunate to meet the Director of that Clinic, Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, who at the time had just begun her tenure at Penn State Law. Due to my intense desire to work on an asylum case, Professor Wadhia specifically assigned me a project that was candidly amazing. There is a general requirement that if someone wants to apply for asylum, he or she must do so within one year of arriving in the U.S.[iii] Our clinic partnered with a local non-profit organization directly representing an asylum seeker in deportation (removal) proceedings, who was applying for protection more than one year of arriving in the U.S. My task was to find a psychologist, arrange for him or her to visit the prison at which the asylum seeker was held, conduct a psychological evaluation, and provide a diagnosis. Once the asylum seeker was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), I used this diagnosis and the evaluation to argue that his PTSD was an exceptional circumstance to the one-year bar for her asylum case and that the asylum application was filed within a reasonable period of time in light of this circumstance. The case involved learning meticulous legal research, strategic legal writing, portions of which were included in the final brief to the judge, and communication skills involving working with an expert psychologist. We were successful. The judge in that case ruled that the individual in removal proceedings met the one-year bar’s exception of extraordinary circumstances given her PTSD due to all the harm she experienced back home. It was a privilege to work on a case that not only impacted an individual life but also resulted in a work product that was cutting edge at that time — previously, it was not as universally accepted as it is now that PTSD can be an exception to the one-year filing deadline in asylum law.

I was honored to work in the Clinic with Professor Wadhia. Due to my experiences in India, I had the underlying compassion and thus drive to work as many hours as it took to change lives for the better (even once in a while spending the entire night in the Clinic working on client’s cases or projects), but I definitely had no legal knowledge or tools without her constant guidance. To be frank, Professor Wadhia was at first very intimidating not only because of her brilliance, but also because of a work ethic that surpassed my own. It seemed she was incredibly efficient and very aware of time management. The other Clinic students had joked at first that she may not be human given how much she did on any given day. Eventually, Professor Wadhia and I became much closer and we connected. I felt comfortable with her as my mentor and told her about my desire to assist others. After the Clinic was completed, she then opened the biggest door of all for me. As most law students are aware, summer jobs are incredibly important to future careers and she gave me the opportunity of a lifetime. 

Professor Wadhia recommended me for an internship with a well-known immigration attorney who frankly was probably one of the best I have ever had the honor to meet. He worked at the large law firm in Washington, D.C. He was so extraordinary that he was paid a large firm salary to work solely on pro bono high profile humanitarian-based immigration cases including appeals (many of which were precedent setting), asylum claims, deportation defense, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), representing children in removal proceedings, and almost anything else you can imagine. He had a photographic memory, and was always incredibly busy as we had over 200 active cases managed between him, myself and another intern. Needless to say, I put in more hours than I had ever done at any place in such a short amount of time and learned more than I could have ever imagined for a summer internship. We worked on several cases successfully there including preventing the deportation of a homosexual man who applied successfully for protection of VAWA due to severe physical abuse from his ex-wife; worked with the FBI on expediting Iraqi security clearance delays—delays which had put our clients who assisted the U.S. in harm’s way; and several other high-profile cases.

It was not just the work that I learned so much from, but I also learned something I believe Professor Wadhia knew I needed to experience, which was the need to have a healthy work-life balance. I saw the long hours that this esteemed attorney in Washington D.C. worked and it was incredibly unhealthy for him, but he did it because he was an angel wanting to help as many people as he could as he knew that the position he held was often the last place potential clients go for pro bono assistance. But seeing his health so severely deteriorate over the years really impacted me because I cared for him as a brother. I needed to experience that in my early legal career. Had I not seen it then it may have really been me that had those health consequences too. I believe one of the reasons Professor Wadhia recommended me for this prestigious position to work with him was because she knew this as well, as she again was always great at getting her work done, time management, and work-life balance.

One thing I had not known in those law school days is that reputation is everything. All the best private immigration attorneys, professors and non-profit attorneys know each other. Little did I know just how well working with this attorney in D.C. would help me in the future. As a long story short, that attorney eventually recommended me to Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinic where I worked immediately after graduating from Penn State Law. At Harvard, I was again with extraordinary professors and attorneys including Deborah Anker and Sabi Ardalan. Debbie and Sabi, knowing I wanted to be back in Texas eventually with family, had recommended me to eventually work at the University of Houston (UH) Law Center’s Immigration Clinic. The clinical director at UH, Professor Geoffrey Hoffman, is another extraordinary mentor, great friend and attorney. I worked several years at UH as a clinical professor where I tried to mentor and provide opportunities to students as Professor Wadhia had provided me. I even currently teach as an Adjunct Professor of Law, the same course I first took from Professor Wadhia and the first field of interest I had in the law—Asylum/Refugee Law.

I currently own and operate a boutique immigration law firm named The Modi Law Firm.[iv] At our firm, we handle all types of immigration law from investor visas to deportation defense and many complicated motions to reopen or appeal. We have won cases ranging from Syrian asylum seekers whose home had been bombed to E2 treaty investor nonimmigrant visas,[v] which are intended for individuals who create a new business or invest in an ongoing one by investing a substantial amount of capital, are the national of a country that maintains a treaty with the U.S., and direct the business with at least 50% ownership of the company. But none of this would be possible without Professor Wadhia teaching me the first parts of immigration law I experienced, constantly mentoring me, and most importantly having the trust to open up the very first door with the extraordinary attorney in Washington, D.C., which led to more doors that opened thereafter for me to reach the position I am in today. It was due to Professor Wadhia’s mentorship, trust, and my training in the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Penn State Law that I was able to help so many pro bono humanitarian immigration cases over the last seven years, to mentor future law students in both a clinical and classroom position, and how I now have the ability to operate my own immigration law firm, which is continuing to change people’s lives for the better. At my firm, we are able to reunite people with their family members, give them the ability to work, to live here, and prevent their deportation. The training I received regarding detail-oriented writing (from brief writing, to legal memos and even detailed email correspondence), legal research sources/databases within asylum/refugee law, and honing communication skills with mock preparations truly prepared me to do very well at my future jobs and has given me so many opportunities. I am eternally grateful.


[i] 8 U.S.C. § 1525.

[ii] Immigration and Nationality (McCarran) Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a) (42) (2014).

[iii] 8 C.F.R. § 208.4(a).

[iv] Susham M. Modi, Immigration Attorney, http://www.themodilawfirm.com (last visited October 31, 2017).

[v] E-2 Treaty Investors, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (Jan. 1, 2014),  https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers/e-2-treaty-investors.

 

Citation: Susham Modi, One Door Opened All the Rest — Eternally Grateful, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration2

Susham Modi

Susham M. Modi is the Founder and Principle Attorney at The Modi Law Firm, a firm located in Houston, Texas that is focused solely on practicing immigration law. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, previously a Clinical Supervising Attorney at UH Law School’s Immigration Clinic and before moving to Houston worked as an Advocate Attorney at Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program.

Class of 2010
Susham Modi

Impact of Law and Culture on Each Other

by Elham Sadri

As far as I remember, I was always interested in philosophy and reasoning. Particularly, I loved to figure out the logical connection between culture and the existing rules governing the society. During the high school time in Iran, I understood how making progressive rules could positively influence the culture of the society whereas retrogressive rules could adversely affect the culture of people. For instance, before the Islamic revolution, there was a significant controversy when women were given the rights to divorce in 1975 and to vote/to be elected in 1963[i]. On the surface, these rules seemed to be advanced. However, since the society was not ready to admit these rules, they were overturned after only four years of being exercised. I was asking myself whether giving more rights to women could improve the culture of the society. In fact, despite the strong protest against these rules, these rules enabled the society to raise cultural awareness to comply with the new rule. After Iran’s revolution, (1979), some of these rules were vacated, and replaced by more regressive rules limiting the freedom of women[ii]. Another example was the impact of new rules which were passed to prohibit the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM[iii]) in some countries such as Egypt. Practicing these rules raised the social awareness and decreased the number of victims of this act. However, when these rules were vacated after Arab spring, the practice of FGM started arising again in despite of all educations were made by the United Nations in these countries.

Law school was the place where I could satisfy my curiosity about the reciprocal impact of policymaking and cultural matters. It was where I got the answer to some of my questions. The LLM program in Dickinson School of Law at Penn State taught me the way of analytical thinking through the discussions with my colleagues. During my time at law school, I was honored to be involved in research carried out in the “Clinique for Immigrants’ Right” under the supervision of Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia. By performing research on immigration remedies for noncitizen victim of domestic violence, I found deeper layers of abuse and discrimination in cases involving family abuse and immigration. In most cases, clients were married with United States Citizen or Legal Permanent Residence. Some of them were not even aware of the fact that they were being abused in their relationships. I learned how these women without citizenship might suffer additional challenges due to their visa status (typically dependent visa holders). These clients must make the most challenging decision in their life. In most cases when they become aware of potential legal protections in the legal system in their host country, they have hard time to overcome their cultural barriers to exercise these rights that have been given to them by American legal system. 

I encounter situations where victims of FGM had been protected in the United States under Asylum law. As a result of this research project, a toolkit was published for a local women’s resource center about immigration remedies for noncitizen victims of domestic violence. I learned that legal remedies for victims of domestic violence were much more enhanced compared to my home country. This research project motivated me to find the possible ways by which I could inform Iranian community about these remedies.

Working in the Center for Immigrants Rights, for the Centre County Women’s Resource Center (CCWRC) was one of the brightest experiences I have ever had. After reviewing the available resources in Farsi, I found that there exists no information about the domestic violence remedies for an immigrant. So, I decided to translate the materials that I had learned in the CCWRC project and outreached the Iranian community about these remedies available for immigrants who were victims of abuse. I also interviewed with Iranian Media in the USA to broadcast these remedies for the Iranian-American community. Fortunately, these attempts received significant attention among the women rights activist.

I am truly happy to see Iranian parliaments is now reviewing a new set of rules to support victims of domestic violence[iv]. Recently, domestic violence is being defined as a crime, meaning Iranian justice system can oversee punishing the people who committed these crimes. Besides, Iran is getting ready to establish more non-profit organizations to help and support victims and survivors of domestic violence. Women have to fight to earn their rights in some countries. However, an immigrant woman is still dealing with the cultural impact of her home country even in her current residence in the USA. However, cultural barriers remain with these women preventing them from exercising their rights and thus to have the safety they deserve.

Now, I am working as an associate attorney in a full-service immigration law firm in San Francisco, CA after passing New York bar exam. I am representing clients in their employment, family-based cases as well as removal proceedings. That always has been my mission to raise awareness about specifics of these rights and remedies for immigrant women who might have to choose not to exercise their right due to their cultural believes.  

 

[i] Gender Inequality and Discrimination: The Case of Iranian Women, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (Mar. 8, 2013), http://iranhrdc.org/english/publications/legal-commentary/1000000261-gender-inequality-and-discrimination-the-case-of-iranian-women.html#19.

[ii] Gender Inequality and Discrimination: The Case of Iranian Women, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (Mar. 8, 2013), http://iranhrdc.org/english/publications/legal-commentary/1000000261-gender-inequality-and-discrimination-the-case-of-iranian-women.html#19.

[iii] The cutting or removing of some or all of the external female genitalia.

[iv] Judiciary Official Proposes New Proposal Against Domestic Violence, Center for Human Rights in Iran (Aug. 28, 2017), https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2017/08/judiciary-official-opposes-new-proposal-against-domestic-violence/.

 

Citation: Elham Sadri, Impact of Law and Culture on Each Other, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration3

Elham Sadri

Elham Sadri is an immigration lawyer in San Francisco, California, Attorney Sadri leverages her diverse background to serve the community. She is also a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and Iranian-American Bar Association (IABA). She is the author of a book in Farsi about American legal education system. Elham actively advocated for women rights in Iran and United States by publishing papers and outreaching through media to educate Iranian women with their rights.

Class of 2012
Elham Sadri

From Zamora-Chinchipe to Memphis

by Stacie Hammond

I challenge you to find a less diverse place than Yankton, South Dakota. As a kid growing up in America’s heartland, I was not exposed to many people that were not Caucasian, Christian, and United States citizens. I definitely did not have a personal story of having fled a war-torn country for the safety of the United States or leaving my home searching for the American Dream. I am not even sure I knew the extent of the challenges people in other countries faced. Despite this, I always had an interest in other cultures and people that were different than me. This interest led me to join the Peace Corps and go to Ecuador after I graduated college in 2007. Little did I know that this experience would send me on a journey that would lead me to my life’s passion and my future career.

In addition to my “official” Peace Corps duties in my new community in the province of Zamora-Chinchipe, Ecuador, I focused on fulfilling the second and third goals of the Peace Corps, which focus on the promotion of cultural awareness between persons in the host country and those in the United States. I spent much of my non-work time speaking with my neighbors about the community and Ecuadorian and United States cultures.

Many of the community members to whom I spoke had family members living in other countries, primarily the United States or Spain. I learned about the difficulties that families face as a result of the migration of one or more family members, whether that migration is legal or illegal. The husband of one woman I spoke to had left for the United States when the woman was pregnant with their daughter, and because the husband was living in the United States without authorization, he was unable to leave or return without running the risk of getting caught crossing the border. As a result, he had yet to meet his daughter, who at the time was eight years old. It was stories such as this one that led me to consider a career in immigration law. I began learning how broken the United States immigration system is and I wanted to be able to do something to improve the system, or at the very least, help people navigate the process of living or visiting the United States legally.

When I returned to the United States, I did everything I could to make my dream of helping immigrants become a reality. The first step was to find a law school that a strong immigration program — that’s what led me to Penn State Dickinson. With Professor Shoba Wadhia leading a “Center for Immigrants’ Rights” and the school’s location near an immigration court, I knew that this was the place for me. I never regretted that decision. In addition to the traditional classes that focused on immigration law generally and asylum law specifically, I was fortunate enough to participate in Professor Wadhia’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights. During my semester with the Clinic, I helped draft a report entitled Leveling the Playing Field: Reforming the H-2B Program to Protect Guestworkers and U.S. Workers for the National Guestworker Alliance.[i] This report highlighted the problems with the current H-2B visa program and the reforms that could be implemented to make the program work better not only for the guestworkers, but also for U.S. workers.

During the summer after my first year of law school, even before I had any formal education in immigration law, I was fortunate enough to get an internship with Hogar Immigrant Services in Falls Church, Virginia. After a half-day overview of immigration law, I was handed a list of twenty clients and told to get to work. I helped a woman petition to legalize her husband’s immigration status. I researched “alien smuggling.” I tracked down the “certifying official” for a U visa law enforcement certification in a small New Jersey town in a time that few people even knew what a U visa was. A U visa is a type of protection available to victims of crime who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of a crime.[ii] That summer was the first time that I woke up every day excited to go to work and to help people. I loved that feeling and knew that I had found my calling.

In my second year of law school, I learned the ins-and-outs of asylum law from Professor Wadhia, studying cases of people fleeing persecution in their home countries. That summer I put the knowledge I had gained to work, interning at the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center.[iii] Among other cases, I assisted an attorney representing a Pakistani man seeking asylum. This man feared returning to his home not only because his family and community had found out that he is gay, but also because his life had been threatened for educating girls in his community. Because this man was in immigration detention and fearful of anyone within the detention center learning that he is gay, he had no one other than me and the attorney working on his case that he could truly be himself with. As Professor Wadhia had taught me, asylum cases are complex and take a considerable amount of time. While this case worked its way through the immigration court, the Board of Appeals, and back to the immigration court, I graduated law school, was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar, and began working on the case as a full-fledged lawyer. While the case ultimately did not work out in our favor, it taught me a lot about myself and about what I wanted my career as an immigration lawyer to look like.

This man had nothing. He had no money to hire an attorney, and because he was in immigration detention, he had no way of earning any. He had been cut off completely from his family, other than a single cousin living on the opposite side of the United States who could only help so much. He had no way of obtaining evidence that could help his asylum case from inside the detention center. He had no idea of how United States immigration law and the immigration system worked. He needed someone to have his back and to fight for him. Even after the immigration judge had ordered him removed back to Pakistan, he expressed his gratitude for my work over the two years and how he could not have done it without me. And he is right. It is unlikely that another attorney would have been able to take his case on a pro bono basis. As much as attorneys may be willing to help, there are only so many hours in the day and a lot of people that need help.

I knew from that point that I wanted to work for a non-profit organization, helping asylum seekers and others who do not have the resources to hire a private attorney, but who have cases that need to be fought. After a year-long detour to clerk for a Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas judge and then serving for two years as Attorney Advisor to the Immigration Judges at the Memphis Immigration Court, I began working in my dream job at the Immigrant Rights Defense Center of Latino Memphis, in Memphis, Tennessee in September 2015. During my time at the Immigrant Rights Defense Center, I have had a number of clients who have reminded me exactly why I chose this career in the first place.

One of my first clients was a 15-year-old boy who had fled Central America due to gang violence and attempts by the local gangs to recruit him into their criminal activity. He had been reunited with his mom here in the United States, but because his father had abandoned him when he was a toddler, he was eligible for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and the lawful permanent residency that comes with that status. The day that we received his green card and he and his mom came to pick it up from my office is a day I will never forget. The joy — and relief — on his and his mom’s faces was worth more than any amount of money. I have received a lot of hugs in my life, but theirs were some of the best. That night and every night after, a mother has slept better, knowing her son is no longer at risk of being deported back to the gangs and violence of their home country. A teen can now finish high school, knowing that he can go to college, he can work, he can reach for his dreams — without his immigration status standing in the way.

More recently, I had a more hard-fought win that will stay with me throughout my career. When Maria[iv] first came into my office, she told me about how she had been raped in her home country and got pregnant as a result of that rape. When her rapist found out that she had given birth, he began harassing her to be with him, to live with him, to marry him, so they could be a family. Maria was not having it — she told me that she could never be with her rapist. Over the next three years, he continually threatened her, he kidnapped her daughter, and he kidnapped her and her daughter. Maria had tears streaming down her face as she told me the awful things this man had done to her. But Maria had another issue — she could not afford to hire an attorney. When I accepted Maria’s case on a pro bono basis, I told her that I did not know whether we could win a case for Asylum. I explained that her case was different than other domestic violence–type cases I had seen, primarily because she and her rapist had never actually been in a relationship. But I told her that she deserved to have someone fight on her behalf. I truly believed that, even if we lost the case, at least Maria had someone beside her in court making the best legal argument that could be made. Over the next months, I struggled to figure out what exactly that legal argument would be. I researched and researched and could not find precedent for a grant of asylum for a case like Maria’s. Nearly at the last minute, I put together a legal argument that — at the very least — would not get us laughed out of the courtroom. Walking into the courtroom that day, I still had no idea whether this was a winnable case. Maria got on the stand and told the Judge about all the awful things she had experienced. During my closing argument, I outlined the legal argument that I had concocted. And then it happened. Not only did the judge not laugh us out of his courtroom, but he granted Maria and her daughter asylum without challenging the legal argument I had made. I had convinced him that this legal argument that had no straight-forward precedent to support it was valid. I try to keep a professional demeanor when I am in court and with clients — but that day it was particularly difficult. A case I had fought so hard to win — had won. This woman and her daughter would be protected from this man who had terrorized her for so many years. And it was because I had taken a chance — given her case a chance — even though we very probably were going to lose. Because she deserved someone to stand in her corner and fight for her — even if she had no money to spare — I was proud, that day, to have been that person.

I know that most people do not find their dream careers ever — much less so early in life. I am so grateful that I wake up each day knowing I get to help others improve their legal situation and — as a result — their lives.


[i] Leveling the Playing Field: Reforming the H-2B Program to Protect Guestworkers and U.S. Workers, Penn State Law and National Guestworker Alliance (Jun. 2016), http://www.guestworkeralliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Leveling-t....

[ii] Victims of Criminal Activity: U Nonimmigrant status, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, (Aug. 25, 2017) https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/victims-human-trafficking-other-crimes/victims-criminal-activity-u-nonimmigrant-status/victims-criminal-activity-u-nonimmigrant-status.

[iii] Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center, http://pirclaw.org (last visited October 31, 2017).

[iv] Not her real name

 

Citation: Stacie Hammond, From Zamora-Chinchipe to Memphis, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration4

Stacie Hammond

Stacie currently serves as the Co-Legal Director at Latino Memphis’ Immigrant Rights Defense Center. She is married to Christopher and they have a one-year old son, Benjamin. In her free time, she loves baking cookies and other sweet treats.

Class of 2012
Stacie Hunhoff

Crossing Rice Fields by Moonlight: Listening as a Tool for Advocacy

by Rebecca Kerner

Parents of Rachel L. Keung Maneuvering through rice fields by moonlight and crossing the border with patrol officers at his heels, my grandfather arrived in Hong Kong in the 1960s with nothing more than the clothes on his back. A physician and member of the intellectual class, my grandfather saw the Cultural Revolution emerging in China as a threat and understood the impending persecution of those that voiced opposition to the Communist Party. He hired a smuggler to help him cross the border from southern China into British-controlled Hong Kong territory. The journey was fraught with unexpected obstacles and dangers; swimming through murky waters and running on foot to evade border patrols, my grandfather soon found sanctuary in Hong Kong, a rapidly growing island city booming with activity.

The actions of my grandfather set into motion a series of events that led to my existence. Soon after he settled in Hong Kong, my mother received a temporary travel permit to visit her father. My mother never returned to China. Upon starting high school, she met a shy and lanky physics-obsessed teenager that helped her with her math homework. My mother and father were not dating then but it became clear that in addition to his love for physics, my father was in love with my mother.

My parents arrived separately in the United States under student visas. In pictures, my mother has her hair long and straight, almost waist length, and mugs a carefree smile to the camera surrounded by other female students from Hong Kong. My father wears bellbottoms and a powder blue frilly top, smirks through a mustache, and dons a mop of wavy permed hair and thick bottle cap glasses.

My father remained obsessed with physics and pursued a graduate degree at the University of Maryland. Upon hearing that my mother had recently started her studies at the University of Wisconsin, he made the love-struck decision to leave his degree program in Maryland and join the graduate program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison to be closer to my mother. When he tells this story, it is as if there was no choice in the matter. There are pictures of them lounging on a summer day, still wearing the bellbottoms and frilly tops, on the grounds of the university campus with sailboats lazily floating behind them on Lake Monona.

The transition to life in the United States was not without its difficulties. A clerical error by an employer left my parents without status and forced a temporary return to Hong Kong with my eldest sister, still an infant, in tow. Though they eventually returned and quickly acclimated to American life, learned English, and even cooked tuna casseroles with canned Campbell’s soup on busy weekday nights, my parents still felt the subtle pangs of being seen as foreign. I learned this lesson in elementary school when a classmate whispered, “go back to China” to me during third period art class as I was picking out blue construction paper. Though having never heard that phrase before, my six-year-old mind immediately understood the implication of his words; my value and belonging amongst my classmates was less because of where my parents came from and how I looked.

That lesson I learned in third period art class resonates with me and propels me forward to this day. I arrived at law school knowing I wanted to work with and on behalf of individuals who are members of marginalized and often unseen communities. During my second year of law school, I participated in Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights as a student-attorney. I was provided the unique opportunity to work on behalf of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration to co-lead a delegation as part of the Commission’s Detention Standards Implementation Initiative.[i] The semester-long project culminated in a comprehensive report on the status of the implementation of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention standards at a local prison contracted to hold immigration detainees. In the weeks leading up to the observational visit of the local prison, my partner and I learned the important skill of listening as a tool of lawyering. Not only was listening an important component to our client-centered advocacy and important in discerning the goals of our client, but listening was critical in interviewing prison staff and detainees.

Very often, the expectation of a lawyer is someone who controls a situation by speaking persuasively. A supervising attorney once told me that the role of the lawyer is to toe the line between therapist and attorney. While the goal is to competently and zealously provide legal advice, and represent a client in any given venue, sometimes all the client wants is to be heard and have their story be told when no one has listened before. During my third year of law school, my law school’s course in advocacy emphasized the story-telling aspect of civil and criminal litigation. In particular, telling a story to an audience that includes characters and their motives may be more convincing than legal standards and jargon. In other words, endless definitions of “beyond a reasonable doubt” may be less effective unless a jury understands a client’s story and why that version makes the most sense knowing the motives of all characters involved. This is not to dismiss the necessity for legal research and analysis; however, I am becoming more convinced that effective lawyering involves a full understanding of our clients’ stories, building trust within the attorney-client relationship, and relaying our clients’ narratives to a judge or jury in a compelling way.

During an internship with the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center (“PIRC”)[ii], a non-profit that provides legal resources and representation to indigent immigration detainees in removal proceedings, I was provided the opportunity to represent a refugee from Sudan facing deportation. At our first meeting, I was eager to check off a list of questions that I had regarding his case and a stack of paperwork to go over. I left that initial meeting with more questions than answers. When I returned and gave him an opportunity to tell his story, his trust in me increased and I was able to see more clearly the issues that needed to be addressed.  Though his case was dismissed on a legal question that I presented to the Immigration Judge, my client gave me room to explore those issues because he knew that I understood his story. Listening is not a static activity. It requires giving your client room to speak and an opportunity to be heard.

The same was true when I was an assistant public defender in Reading, Pennsylvania. Though faced with hundreds of files at any given time, listening became a critical part of building trust and competently representing a client. Very often a legal issue, defense, or weakness in the Commonwealth’s case would emerge only if I was carefully listening to a client’s story and responded with the right questions. I saw many senior public defenders ask their clients, “what’s your side of the story?” and actually listen knowing that a judge was impatiently waiting for an answer in the next room. It would be easy, given over stretched resources, for a public service attorney to treat clients as files that need to be reviewed and resolved. However, my prior experiences and education, through coursework and clinical opportunities, reinforced the importance of client-focused representation and listening as a tool of effective lawyering.

In every position I have held, there have been questions regarding my ethnicity or my origin. I have had puzzled clients ask if I was a native English speaker and other clients assume that I am meek because of historical stereotypes of Asian women as quiet and docile. Proving that assumption wrong is of particular interest to me because there is room in the legal field for those that do not fit the mold of a traditional attorney. I may be reserved and speak with less bravado than others, but I am not meek. Though it has been a long time since anyone has implied that I should return to China, knowing the sting of being considered an outsider is what makes me a better advocate for clients who feel cast aside and face insurmountable challenges against them.


[i] PENN STATE LAW’S CENTER FOR IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS, CASES AND PROJECTS, 2011-2012, https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/practice-skills/clinics/center-immigrants%E2%80%99-rights-clinic/cases-and-projects/cases-and-projects-0 (last visited November 11, 2017).

[ii] Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center, http://pirclaw.org (last visited October 31, 2017).

 

Citation: Rebecca Kerner, Crossing Rice Fields by Moonlight: Listening as a Tool for Advocacy, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration5

Rebecca Kerner

Rebecca is currently practicing immigration law. Previously, Rebecca was a public defender in Pennsylvania.

Class of 2013

American Child of Mexico to Immigration Attorney of Today

by Vienna M. Vasquez

I am a grandchild of immigration. My grandfather, Alfonso, is from a poor village in Sonora, Mexico. His childhood was difficult. When he was a teenager, his father was killed. Hoping to help his mother support his many siblings, Alfonso came to the United States at the age of nineteen. He entered California in the fifties under the Bracero program, an initiative program ratified in 1942 bringing in Mexican laborer immigrants to replace the labor shortage caused by America’s entry into World War II. Through this program, my grandfather and over four million other Mexicans came into this country to begin new lives in California, Texas, and farther beyond the border.[i] After he first entered, he was a victim of modern indentured servitude. The owner of the farm where he toiled refused to compensate him any money, claiming that a roof over his head was payment enough. After a while, he found a way to leave the farm and begin again, near Los Angeles.

After struggling for years to earn pennies to send back home, he began to build a life for himself. In 1958, Alfonso married Gloria. My grandmother is a first generation United States citizen, whose parents were Mexican immigrants. Their family grew to six children and seven grandchildren, including myself. Sometime in the sixties, my grandfather adjusted status to lawful permanent resident. In other words, he had the permission from the United States government to live and work indefinitely. He was now a green card holder, which was an infinitely more secure status than he had as a Bracero. In 1994, he naturalized, the process in which a non-citizen is granted United States citizenship. I was present for his ceremony. Alfonso Vasquez is the most proud and patriotic American I know. His children and grandchildren are lucky to have him.

I was raised in a climate rich with culture, with stories from Mexico ever-present. I believe in America the Melting-Pot. I developed a desire to help immigrants find the same sanctuary here that my grandfather was able to find. I decided to attend law school with that goal in mind.

Before law school, I saw immigration through my grandfather’s eyes: an idea that people come to what they view as a land of opportunity to make a life for themselves and their families. Through my legal education, I learned what it meant to come to this country out of fear.

During law school, I served as a clinic student at the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (“Clinic”). My experiences at the Clinic helped fine tune my career goals. While serving at the Clinic, I was able to help two individuals seeking asylum in the United States. It would be an understatement to say the contributions I could make to their cases was rewarding.

During my time at the Clinic, I had the opportunity to work on a political opinion asylum case for an individual from Mexico.[ii] At the master calendar hearing, the attorney of record had been given less than two weeks to submit a completed asylum application for this client. These application packets are complicated and require a great deal of attention to detail; two law school clinics, two immigration law professors, and a volunteer had to scramble down to the wire to meet the impending deadline.

I was assigned the country conditions research memorandum that would be submitted with the application, and was responsible for maintaining communication between the clinics and the client throughout the ordeal. It was a stressful week and a half, and the lessons learned have remained with me as I begin my professional career. In the real world of immigration lawyering, we do not always have months to complete an application. It was important for me to learn how to manage my time when unexpected situations such as this arise.

I spent the greater portion of my time at the clinic working on an asylum case for an indigenous woman. This individual had suffered unspeakable trauma, and due to her status as an indigenous woman, was given no protection from law enforcement. The work I did on this case was long and, at times, arduous. I am grateful to have spent those months dedicated to such an important cause, regardless of the emotional toll of the case. The in-depth research I did on country conditions reaffirmed that she had a legitimate fear for her life if she were to return. There was no question — she had to stay here. And I was willing to do whatever I could to help make that happen.

Working on these cases in law school, in addition to the courses I took and the other clinic projects I was assigned, helped shape the way I view the law and the type of attorney I am today. Where I used to see this country as a welcoming one, I now have come to see it through different eyes. Immigration law in America is harsh and unforgiving. The system is broken, and though I would like to believe it will improve in the near future, the current political climate tells me differently. For all the intricacies and intrigue of our system, my goal is simple and unchanged — I want to help people who should be permitted to remain or who are afraid to return to their home country.

I graduated from the Penn State Law in May 2016, and began as an immigration and family law attorney at a small non-profit located in Pennsylvania. The experiences I gained in the clinic have been influential in my current roles, as both an immigration attorney and as a family law attorney. I respect my clients and I care deeply about their cases. Though I have only been practicing for a short time, I am diligent in my research and strive to leave no rocks unturned nor avenues unexplored.

Despite my hopes that I would be able to help every individual that crosses my path, I have already experienced letdowns. There have been people seeking my assistance, for whom there were no options for immigration relief, given both the legal framework of today and their own circumstances. Turning those cases away has been difficult.

In my short time, I have been fortunate enough to experience some successes as well. I have a number of immigration cases currently pending with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)[iii], including, but not limited to, naturalization applications, Special Immigrant status petitions, and other related immigration applications. I see great possibilities for these clients and am hopeful that my efforts will help them achieve their goals. Having learned the importance of due diligence and careful planning while working in the clinic, I am very cautious when it comes to my clients’ cases today. I carefully research each individual’s immigration history before helping them with any new applications. It was the practical experience I gained in the clinic that initially taught me the importance of taking such care.

I have found my experiences as a family law attorney to be extremely rewarding as well. For example, I helped a client with young children to gain primary custody of them. The opposing party had chosen to be absent for most of the children’s lives, and then unexpectedly filed a complaint in which he was seeking primary custody of them. Helping my client achieve a final order in her favor, and seeing her relief and joy was one of the brightest moments of my career thus far.

Though their problems differ from the problems faced by my immigration clients, the people that have sought my help with their custody cases are often afraid as well. I am fortunate to be able to use my education and credentials to help them through such difficult times. I have used the legal-analysis and client-interaction skills I developed while working at the clinic in all types of cases I am working on today.

I am lucky. I have strong family members that have risen from nothing, and their hard work has made it possible for me to succeed. My grandfather has been an inspiration to me from the start. I attended his naturalization ceremony, and twenty-two years later, he attended my law school graduation ceremony. He was so proud. But without him, I never would have come this far. Now, I hope to use my position to help others rise above adversity.


[i] See “Bracero Program Images,” United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, last updated December 07, 2013, https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/historical-library/library-news/bracero-program-images; Fred L. Koestler, “Bracero Program,” Handbook of Texas Online, last accessed May 20, 2017, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/omb01; Lampe, Philip E. “Bracero Program,” Immigration to the United States, last accessed May 20, 2017, http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/389-bracero-program.html.

[ii] Immigration and Nationality (McCarran) Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42) (2014).

[iii]U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, https://www.uscis.gov/ (last visited, November 11, 2017)

 

Citation: Vienna M. Vasquez, American Child of Mexico to Immigration Attorney of Today, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration6

Vienna M. Vasquez

Vienna Vasquez became interested in immigration law after watching her grandfather go through the naturalization process. She graduated from Penn State Law in 2016, and began working for a Pennsylvania non-profit organization. She is now a practicing family law attorney.

Class of 2016
Vienna M. Vasquez

Cancellation of Removal Gave Us a Chance

by Laura Lopez Ledesma

Why I decided to go to law school

I came to law school so that I can serve as a licensed immigration attorney in my community of Northern California because there is a great need for licensed practitioners. Getting licensed is my overarching reason for law school. The underlining reason I would like to serve as an attorney is because of immigration “consultants” working in my community. The consultants may or may not have had the means to attend law school, yet they are practicing law to the detriment of migrants. Reasons people seek legal services from consultants include the higher cost of private-attorney fees, the limited availability of private or nonprofit attorneys in the community, and the word-of-mouth referrals based on successful cases and in the absence of the voices of those whose cases ended in removal. A person unlawfully practicing law directly impacted my family. My parents hired a person who turned out not to be an attorney and who charged them for doing absolutely no work. Had my parents’ application been filed earlier, I may now have lawful status. Although and because I am undocumented, I am in law school to become an attorney and help the migrant community.

My migration story, according to my mother

I migrated from Mexico with my mother in 1989, when I was a year and nine months old. I purposefully say that I came with her because I would like to believe that if she had come to this country without me, I would have made the voyage like many of the unaccompanied minors have done to date to reunite with family. We migrated for a better life. My reasons for coming to the U.S. were socioeconomic; a reason which is so seldom empathized.

My father was an alcoholic who spent his earnings from the Guanajuato Electricity Commission at the local bars. My mother worked selling clothes at the local market. She did her best to make it work, but the relationship was unhealthy. We had two choices: either we stayed and struggled with my father who did not want to stop drinking, or we took a chance in the U.S. In either case, my mother would be raising me as a single mother. We decided to migrate.

My paternal grandparents, Juan and Elodia, rode the bus with my mother and me to the border. The journey was about four days long. The hardest part of our journey across Mexico was standing on the edge of a cliff while the bus’s flat tire was changed. Our journey’s hardship does not compare to the hardship many migrants now face. When we reached the border, we were taken to a home where we then got in the back of truck that took us to the beach near the San Ysidro, California port of entry.

We were at the beach having a picnic until the call came out, “Ya.” The call, “Now,” meant that the border patrol agents where changing shifts and there would be a void at the port. The call meant that we were all to get back onto the trucks and ride across the line. We headed from San Ysidro to Los Angeles. From Los Angeles, we rode north to Napa, wine country. Napa Valley has been my home ever since. My father decided to join us after seeing that my mother was set on providing me with a better life, even if it meant separating from him.

The ease that we had in migrating is the reason why my mother and I never returned to Mexico while undocumented. She tells me she thought we were lucky and did not want to risk bringing on bad luck by doing the migration again.

In the hopes of fixing our status, my parents saved up to hire an attorney. They had consultations with people who held themselves out to be attorneys and others who actually were attorneys until they found the one who could help. My parents’ last attorney found that the only legal remedy they could seek was asylum. However, the claim was not strong and it was denied, so my parents were placed in removal proceedings.

I remember being in fifth grade when my parents took me to an appointment with the attorney. I knew we were in the office to apply to fix our papers, our immigration status. What I did not know then, is that my parents’ application was part of a removal defense. I was not included in the application because I was not in deportation and even if I were, I was not eligible for any remedy.

The only remedy that my parents could use to defend against their deportation is known as Cancellation of Removal for nonpermanent residents. There are two types of Cancellation of Removal, one for persons who are LPRs (green-card holders) and another for non-LPRs. The requirements for non-LPR Cancellation of Removal, in a simplified way, are (1) having been in the country for at least 10 years, (2) have a good moral character, and (3) have a qualifying relative who would suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship if the non-LPR were removed.[i]

Like my parents, I met the 10-year requirement and had a good moral character. But unlike them, I did not have a qualifying relative; they had my sister, but I had no one. The attorney fought their removal case for almost six years until 2004 when the immigration judge granted them LPR status. As residents, my parents were finally able to travel to Mexico, and my father was able to petition for me to become an LPR.

The judge’s Cancellation of Removal grant gave my family the first real chance to make a better life for us and to stay in the U.S. I was seventeen years-old then. When I turned twenty-one years-old, I aged out of the quickest process that was available for me to get LPR status. I turn thirty years-old this year, and I am still waiting, but I have not let this limbo-status stop me.

While waiting for my legal status, I graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz, co-founded undocumented student support groups in Santa Cruz and Napa, organized for access to higher education and immigration reform, and engaged in civil disobedience in an effort to pass the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. The DREAM Act was a federal, bipartisan legislation first introduced in 2001.[ii] Persons who entered the U.S. before turning sixteen years-old, completed high school (or an equivalent degree), and who completed two years of a higher education or of military service would have been allowed onto a pathway to LPR status. Despite hard work and sacrifice, the DREAM Act has failed.

While organizing for the DREAM Act, I earned a living as a server in my parents’ restaurant and as an independent contractor. My parents had opened a restaurant a few months before the immigration judge granted them status. I took on different roles, including serving at the restaurant and catered jobs, designing and updating the website, and editing and printing menus, to-go menus, and business cards. I would manage the restaurant during the only week of the year that my parents travel to Mexico. I deemed the restaurant as my college scholarship and my livelihood upon graduation. I also worked as an independent contractor supporting the work of organizations that fought for the rights of undocumented people: rights to higher education and affordable housing.

In 2012, organizers succeeded in getting the then-Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, to sign the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy memorandum.[iii] DACA requirements are similar to many DREAM Act requirements including having entered the U.S. before turning 16 years old and having graduated from a U.S. high school (or being enrolled in high school or an equivalent program). Beneficiaries are assigned a Social Security Number that may be used to work as long as there is a current Employment Authorization Card. Once I received DACA, I was authorized to work in jobs as an employee rather than as an independent contractor. One important difference is that DACA is a temporary reprieve and does not provide legal or permanent status. Without DACA, I would not have been able to work with Citizenship Legal Services (CLS), a collaborative to help eligible Permanent Residents become U.S. citizens. During my year at CLS, I helped develop the outreach plan and methods for supporting LPRs through the naturalization process. I also volunteered as a Naturalization instructor.

Another benefit that DACA recipients may be eligible for is to travel abroad with Advance Parole, through an Application for Travel Document. Persons can apply to travel for education, employment, or humanitarian reasons. I intended to travel to Mexico based on the latter, the anniversary of my grandfather Juan’s passing. But my plan has had to change.

In 2009, I was in my last year at UC Santa Cruz. One month before I graduated, my grandfather passed after a hard-fought battle against cancer. At that time, there was no way I could travel to Mexico and return to the U.S., unless I crossed the border without permission to travel and return. After receiving DACA, I sought the opportunity to work and get through law school. I planned to apply for Advance Parole to visit him once I graduated from law school.

It is 2017 and I am in my last year of school once again. Now, despite being eligible for the legal process to travel, I do not dare to do so under the current administration because the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), the union, endorsed Trump. The Border Patrol agents could, albeit arbitrarily, decided to not honor my return. DACA is a discretionary reprieve from deportation; Advance Parole is a discretionary permission to travel. With all the discretion that is inherent in these processes, a border agent could use discretion to not admit me back into the country. NBPC endorsement of the President makes the denial more plausible. If I went and were obstructed I would fight to come back by using all available legal tools. But the fight I have decided to take on is to study for and pass the bar exam — I am holding steadfast to my goal.

The Center’s LPR Cancellation of Removal Toolkit Affected Professional Trajectory

Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (“Clinic”) has given me the opportunity to provide attorneys with a tool to defend migrants. I initially applied to the clinic to explore doing policy work. I had done community organizing so I wanted practice in policy work that attorneys can do. Instead, I was assigned to work on a toolkit for practitioners and that was the best assignment for me because it served to confirm that the role I want within immigration work is to directly represent clients.

In 2010, Clinic students created the “Practitioner’s Toolkit on Cancellation of Removal for Lawful Permanent Residents.” During my second year in law school, my clinic partner Lauren Picciallo and I had the opportunity to update the toolkit for 2016. The toolkit is a manual for attorneys who may or may not be familiar with immigration law, but who have taken on a case to defend a person who is a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR).[iv] The attorney can use the toolkit to assess if the LPR is eligible for Cancellation of Removal, to learn the law within the Third Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as to find samples and tips from seasoned attorneys. Essentially, by researching, updating, and editing the toolkit, I learned how to prepare a Cancellation defense. Because my parents were undocumented persons they used non-LPR Cancellation rather than LPR Cancellation. Nonetheless, through the updating process, I learned to differentiate between the two types of Cancellation and to understand the difficulty the attorney had in winning my parents’ removal case.

My parents were placed in removal proceedings after 1996, after President Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Through my time at the Clinic, I speculated about many “what-if”, about how my life would be different if my parents had obtained legal representation earlier than they did.

Had an attorney filed for the asylum claim earlier, and been denied earlier, my parents’ may have been eligible for “Suspension from deportation”[v] which had a lower threshold than Cancellation. Suspension also required proof of good moral character, but the other differences are substantial: instead of requiring a 10-year presence prior to being eligible for relief, Suspension required seven years; instead of requiring hardship at the “exceptional and extremely unusual” level, under Suspension the hardship was “extreme”; and under Suspension, hardship could be to a qualifying relative or to oneself.[vi] Had Suspension still been available, maybe my parents’ case would have been adjudicated sooner because the burden of proof would not have been so great and could be shown to my sister and themselves.

Perhaps my LPR application would have been submitted earlier. Maybe then I would not have aged-out. Or maybe then my application would have been submitted prior to April 30, 2001, and I would be covered by 245(i), allowing me to pay a $1,000 fine to get my visa within the United States instead of going to Mexico to get it.[vii] Simply traveling to Mexico to get the visa will trigger a ten-year bar, a requirement for me to remain in Mexico for ten years before being allowed back in with my visa.[viii] I may be eligible for a waiver to the ten-year bar because I am the daughter of a U.S. citizen, but the burden of proof (extreme hardship to the citizen) will be hard to show given that I am dependent on my parents for law school loans.

As I worked on the toolkit, I contemplated all of these “what-ifs.” These “what-ifs” motivated me to finish the toolkit so attorneys can expeditiously and correctly fight to help migrants before any negative policy change is made. Under this administration any immigration reform would likely be for the worse, just like the 1996 immigration reform was for many people. Because of the opportunity to edit the toolkit, I have a deeper appreciation for all of the work that goes into manuals produced for practitioners’ use, and I confirmed that representation is the work that I want to do.

My future practice as a minority member in the legal profession

The Clinic has prepared me to take on the two daunting sayings that I often hear: (1) immigration law is nearly as complex and difficult as tax law, and (2) the laws are always changing. I have the confidence that I am graduating from Penn State knowing that Professor Wadhia’s teachings have given me the skills to navigate between the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Code of Federal Regulation, case law (sometimes unpublished opinions), and agency memoranda. Because of the Immigration Law and the Refugee and Asylum Law courses, I believe I am prepared to navigate the complexity of immigration law, to crossreference and adjust my practice new to amendments and interpretations. I have tested those skills in through my work on the toolkit. These skills are especially important because it cannot be truer today that the laws are always changing; unfortunately, the changes are to the detriment of the migrant community. But because of the Clinic, there are great resources to fight for and defend the migrant community. After working on the toolkit, I know I can look to the Clinic for quality, reliable manuals that guide new immigration attorneys like I am soon to be.

I am an undocumented DACA-recipient. I know firsthand how important it is to receive legal services from authorized providers who have been trained in the law, and I came to Penn State to be trained to practice. Because California passed AB 1024, the California Bar is permitted to admit undocumented law graduates. Thus, even if the Secretary of Homeland Security ends DACA, I may still be licensed in California and able to open my own office and employ people to work for me, for the community.

Although President Donald Trump campaigned with ending DACA, we do not yet know if he will follow through with this promise. So, I have plan A and plan B. Plan A, is to be a fellow at the nonprofit legal service agency. I will open my own practice as Plan B, in case I no longer have the work permit granted by DACA. I may not have legal status yet, but I will continue organizing and helping others obtain remedies for which they are currently eligible, and I will be able to look back to the Clinic and know I have the skills and resources to provide quality and effective services.

N.B. Following the submission of this essay, the Trump administration announced the rescission of DACA on September 5, 2017.[ix]


[i] 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b) (2008); Immigration and Nationality (McCarran) Act § 240A(b), 8 U.S.C.A. § 1229b (2008).

[ii] Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/senate-bill/1291

[iii] Memorandum from Janet Napolitano, Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., to David V. Aguilar, Acting Comm’r, U.S. Customs & Border Prot., Alejandro Mayorkas, Dir., U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs., John Morton, Dir., U.S. Immigration & Customs Enf’t (June 15, 2012) (https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/s1-exercising-prosecutorial-discretion-individuals-who-came-to-us-as-children.pdf).

[iv] PENN STATE LAW’S CENTER FOR IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS, Practitioner’s Toolkit on Cancellation of Removal for Lawful Permanent Residents, https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/sites/default/files/Final_Toolkit_Private.pdf (last visited, November 11, 2017)

[v] I-881, Application for Suspension of Deportation or special rule cancellation of removal, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (Apr. 27, 2017), https://www.uscis.gov/i-881.

[vi] 8 C.F.R. § 240.65(b).

[vii] Immigration and Nationality (McCarran) Act § 245(i)(1), 8 U.S.C.A. § 1255(i)(1) (2017).

[viii] Wadhia, Shoba Sivaprasad. Immigration Law's Catch-22: The Case for Removing the Three and Ten-Year Bars, Bender’s Immigration Bulletin 2014 (Nov. 3, 2014), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2518469 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2518469.

[ix] Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, I-881 (Oct. 6, 2017), https://www.uscis.gov/archive/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca.

 

Citation: Laura Lopez Ledesma, Cancellation of Removal Gave Us a Chance, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration7

Laura Lopez Ledesma

Laura is a 2017 law graduate working with VIDAS, an immigration nonprofit legal services agency in Northern California. She provides asylum removal defense and affirmative application assistance ranging from U Visas to Family Petitions and Consular Processing. She and her husband are expecting their first child, and she is motivated to change this world into the place she wishes her child to grow in.

Class of 2017
Laura Lopez Ledesma

A Simple Change

by Lauren Picciallo

I have lived my life amidst two cultures that have loved and hated each other since the inception of Bernstein’s Westside Story. My father’s family is Italian American and my mother’s family is Puerto Rican. When I visit Puerto Rico, I enjoy the lush greenery, the sweet scent of sugar cane that my ancestors cultivated, and the old urban area of San Juan that was built during the Spanish Conquests. When I visited my grandfather, I appreciated the romantic language, his stories of the trip to the United States aboard a ship in the 1930s, and the traditional family recipe of five meat gravy passed from my great-grandmother.

Yet with the beauty of different cultures, there is conflict. There have been instances where I have heard distressing remarks about people of Hispanic origin. He is probably “illegal,” as though the very presence of a person can cause their being “illegal.” The bumper sticker on a car, which states “It’s America, speak English” as though the United States is not an amalgamation of different countries and languages from around the world. Perhaps it is my Hispanic roots, the witnessing my beloved grandparents receive the side-eye, the distressing remarks toward people in the Hispanic culture generally, that has drawn me to law school and the field of immigration law.

My second semester of my second year in law school, I joined the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (“Center”), and then I participated in the Center the remainder of my law school career. It is safe to say, that the Center has shaped my law school experience and the way I perceive the law as a career.

I. Semester One

My first semester, I was tasked with two projects, the revised version of the Cancellation of Removal Toolkit, and the second which culminated in a presentation called “Rethinking Reentry: Prosecution, Defense, and Human Rights Perspectives.”

A. Cancellation of Removal Toolkit

Laura Lopez Ledesma and I were tasked with updating the 2010 Cancellation of Removal Toolkit. Once the semester started, we hit the ground running. Though a 2010 version existed, working to amass a knowledge and compilation of just one form of relief was an undertaking. We delved into what a lawful admission looked like, the stop time rule, aggravated felony, the categorical approach, the modified categorical approach, case law on the discretionary component of LPR Cancellation of Removal, among other things. Beyond the case law, we conducted interviews on best practices, learned about evidence necessary to show eligibility for relief, how to request criminal background from federal and state agencies, and a lot of blue booking, all the meanwhile learning about working with an institutional client, Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center[i] and meeting deadlines.

B. Rethinking Reentry: Prosecution, Defense, and Human Rights Perspectives

The same semester my other partner, William Brennan, and I were tasked with what I thought was a more amorphous task, continuing the dialogue with the Federal District Attorney’s Office[ii] and Public Defender’s office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.[iii] Both stakeholders have worked with immigrants whom have been charged criminally. The Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic became involved with the offices to determine how an immigrant facing the possibility of a charge with 8 USC §§ 1325 and 1326, Entry and Reentry, could present mitigating circumstances to either avoid charges or lessen the sentence.

Section 1325 criminalizes those noncitizens who attempt to enter the United States at a place other than those designated, elude examination by immigration office, or attempt to enter with willfully false or misleading representation or willful concealment of a material fact. Section 1326 charges criminalize any person who reenters after an order of exclusion, deportation, or removal. Many times, people who are prosecuted for entry or reentry come to the United States for one of three reasons: (1) to seek work; (2) to reunite with family; (3) to flee violence or sometimes persecution abroad.[iv]

Previous students had been working on a screening instrument for defendants charged with 8 USC §§ 1325 and 1326. First, my partner and I contacted the offices to see what revisions could be made to the screening instrument. At this point the content of the screening instrument was nearly complete. The screening instrument included mitigating factors such as the defendant’s health, family in the United States, and overall ties to the United States. While the content was nearly complete but for some formatting, my partner and I still were trying to find what was the best utility for the screening instrument. Was the screening instrument best served in the hands of the United States District Attorneys’ Offices or the Public Defenders’ Offices? Additionally, we wanted our participation with the offices to continue beyond the revisions for the screening instrument.

In the end, our project culminated in a panel discussion named “Rethinking Reentry: Prosecution, Defense, and Human Rights Perspectives” where my partner and I presented the finalized screening instruments and hosted a panel discussion on the entry and reentry charges. The speakers included the U.S. District Attorney and two Assistant Federal Public Defenders for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and a Senior Researcher from Human Rights Watch. My partner and I formulated a series of questions for the speakers about the federal interests in prosecuting noncitizens for illegal entry and reentry, whether such federal interests are served when considering the significant humanitarian costs of the prosecutions, and the role of prosecutorial discretion.

In this unique non-adversarial setting, the Federal Public Defenders could voice their experience about their ability to present mitigating factors to the United States District Attorney’s Office. As noted by the Penn State Law article on the event, Assistant Federal Public Defender Freese stated: “By the time our office is involved, the client has been indicted, charged with a felony, and there is very little that can be done in terms of considering mitigation to lessen the charges.”[v] She continued to state: “We’re not telling this information to the prosecutor, but telling this to a judge.”[vi] Unfortunately, for the Defendants with charges of Entry or Reentry, this means that little opportunity exists for the Public Defender to present mitigating factors to the opposing counsel prior to filing of the charges to the court. Therefore, little opportunity exists for the U.S. Attorney to be informed about mitigating factors such as the unity of family or fear of return to native country on account of violence or persecution.

Prior to my experience in the Center for Immigrants’ Rights, my conception of the lawyer was a client-attorney based model. However, the clinic has taught me that to be an attorney can be much more. My first semester taught me that advocating for an individual client, includes advocating for an institutional change or educating attorneys about best practices and analyses of an avenue for relief. The institutional change can positively affect the life of not just one client, but many similarly situated people. This is true, where, such as in the case of the charges for Entry and Reentry, a simple change such as appointing a federal public defender earlier in the case could affect a person’s life.

II. Semester II

After the first semester, I continued in the Center for Immigrants’ Rights as an advanced clinical student. This semester I was able to work on two individualized cases. In one case, I assisted in the representation of a client who sought relief from deportation via applying for the U Visa. A U Visa is an immigration benefit created by Congress to support law enforcement efforts, by encouraging victims of crimes to report and cooperate with investigations and prosecutions, regardless of immigration status.[vii] The U Visa is available to noncitizen victims of certain qualifying crimes that have occurred in the United States, who have been helpful to an investigation or prosecution. As part of the application, the Department of Homeland Security requires that a designated certifying official sign a certification form, which attests that the victim is or has cooperated in the detection, investigation, and/or prosecution of the perpetrator. Initially, the project was focused on communicating with local law enforcement and government officials to obtain a certification verifying that the client was indeed a victim of the enumerated crime. However, the case plan expanded after speaking to several practitioners to reevaluating how to persuade local law enforcement to be willing to sign the certification for this case and in the future, and looking to the federal government to become a certifier.

III. Semester III

During my last semester in the Center for Immigrants’ Rights, I continued work on U Visa Case. At this point, it appeared that the certification would be obtained. With the certification, all forms for the client and her children were to be completed. Weekly, hours were spent with the client going over what was to be most likely over 100 pages of paperwork and statements. Also included with paperwork was the client’s personal statement, which involved recreating the crime she was victim to, the crime’s effects on her life, and her involvement with the detection, investigation, and prosecution of the crime. I imagine no person particularly likes to recreate a traumatizing event, so empathy and understanding became essential to this experience. The ability to begin the interview so as to orient the client about the purpose of the meeting, to recognize when a break is needed, or when the client needed to just tell the story without interruption was necessary.

In addition to the work on the U Visa, I participated in several presentations on the President Trump’s Executive Orders on Immigration. The purpose of the presentations was to inform the community about the provisions in the orders and the order’s possible effects. Again, the clinic gave the opportunity to inform the community. This time, however, the time period to distill the information to a presentation form was more truncated than previously. The previous presentation in which I had presented, “Rethinking Reentry: Prosecution, Defense, and Human Rights Perspectives,” was a culmination of my work over the entire semester. In consequence of the rapidly changing immigration environment, the information was distilled and made into presentation form within a week. More of the people affected by the orders were fellow Penn State students. The first presentation on President Trump’s Executive Orders filled two classrooms in the law school, people were standing along the walls and in the aisles. Members of the State College community and Penn State University were present. I was given the opportunity to present on Public Safety Executive Order. As litigation on the Executive Orders progressed, I participated in two other Clinic presentations on the Executive Orders on Immigration to give updated information. These presentations impressed upon me the need affected communities have for accurate information and the need for immigrants’ in the United States to have a plan and an attorney when traveling.

Overall, the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic has allowed me to develop more a in depth understanding of what it is to be a lawyer. It has allowed me to meet many zealous practitioners in the field. It has given me a haven to practice the necessary skills of research, client interactions, development of case plans and theory, and oral advocacy in in an area of law that is incredibly complex not only because of the law itself, but because of the need of the people this area of law assists.


[i] See, Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center, http://pirclaw.org (last visited October 31, 2017).

[ii] See, the United States Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdpa (last visited November 11, 2017)

[iii] See, Federal Public Defender, Middle District of Pennsylvania, http://pam.fd.org (last visited, November 11, 2017)

[iv] See, Human Rights Watch, Turning Migrants into Criminals, 43 (May 2013) http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0513­_ForUpload_2.pdf.

[v] U.S. Attorney, Public Defenders, and Human Rights Expert Discuss Prosecution of Noncitizen illegal Entry and Reentry (April 2016) https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/news/us-attorney-public-defenders-and-human-rights-expert-discuss-prosecution-noncitizen-illegal

[vi] U.S. Attorney, Public Defenders, and Human Rights Expert Discuss Prosecution of Noncitizen illegal Entry and Reentry (April 2016) https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/news/us-attorney-public-defenders-and-human-rights-expert-discuss-prosecution-noncitizen-illegal

 

Citation: Lauren Picciallo, A Simple Change, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration8

Lauren Picciallo

Class of 2017
Lauren Picciallo

My Immigration Story: From Mindoro, Philippines to State College, PA

by Carlos Briggs Camandang

My immigration story began even before I was born when my aunt petitioned my father in 1983. At that time, my parents only had my older sister, who was born in 1980. I was born in 1991 and my younger sister was born in 1997. In 2005, 22 years later, the petition papers filed by my aunt in 1983 to sponsor my family finally became current. Before 2005, my family had completely forgotten that our immigration applications were being processed because of how long it had been since my aunt filed the petition papers. As soon as we received the notification papers in 2005, we began the final steps of the process of immigrating to the United States. After going through medical examinations, filling out and filing different kinds of affidavits and documents, and interviewing with a consular officer in the United States Embassy in Manila, we were finally granted a visa to immigrate from the Philippines to the United States in 2006. Unfortunately, my older sister in 2005 was no longer considered a child[i] under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and was married, making her ineligible to become a derivative and join my family to move to the United States. In March 2006, my family, without my older sister, emigrated from Mindoro, Philippines to Long Beach, California, United States.

One of the pillars of United States immigration law is family reunification, but due the backlogs in the family-based immigration system, families sometimes do not reunite until after more than 20 years, just like my family. This backlog develops because “the number of visas available by law each year is less than the number of prospective immigrants getting in line to wait for a visa.”[ii] As of January 2017, the wait under the F-4 category[iii] under the family-based immigration system from the Philippines is over 23 years.[iv] If family reunification is one of the pillars of the U.S. immigration law, it should not take 23 years for families to reunite. Since Congress last revisited the family-based immigration system in 1990, almost three decades ago, a revision of this section of the statute is long overdue.[v]

One of my inspirations of attending law school is the personal knowledge I have of how difficult and exhausting the immigration process can be. The final steps of our immigration process were everything but easy. All of the documents needed be reviewed carefully and some even needed to be revised or be approved by a government agency. I remember when we were in Manila on our way to the U.S. embassy for the interview for the visa application, my parents were very anxious because they were afraid that they would not understand and not be able to respond properly in English. I also remember that the consular officer asked me and my little sister whether we were my parents’ real children because of the unusual age gaps between me and my siblings. When my family arrived in the United States, we experienced dramatic culture shock, especially because of the language barrier. There is a huge difference between learning and knowing how to speak English in the Philippines and using it in everyday life in the United States.

Because of these personal challenges and experiences, I was motivated to go to law school and help contribute to the immigrant community. One of the key characteristics of being a good lawyer is to be able to represent your client well by articulating his or her voice eloquently and effectively. From my experience, many recent immigrants have a hard time expressing their voices and opinions. I would like to give a voice to those who are unable to express themselves, particularly immigrants who face language barriers. I would like to help families reunite and resolve immigration issues that my future clients may have.

The Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants Rights’ Clinic (“Clinic”) is one of the reasons why I decided to move to the east coast and attend Penn State Law. The Clinic is supervised by Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar and Clinical Professor of Law. In addition to being enrolled in the Clinic in fall 2016, I was also enrolled in Professor Wadhia’s Immigration Law class. I found taking these two courses concurrently to be particularly beneficial because I was able to learn core concepts in Immigration Law and then apply these concepts in practical and experiential ways in the Clinic. Both the Immigration Law class and the Clinic reinforced my interest in immigration law.

In the Clinic, my partner and I took the lead on the Community and Education Outreach Project. In fall 2016, this project consisted of two different collaborations: first with Welcoming America and second, with Bibles, Badges and Business (“BBB”). The Clinic in fall 2016 became the first collegiate member of Welcoming America, which is a national organization that hopes to inspire to build a community that embraces immigrants and fosters opportunity for all.[vi] Welcoming America connects a broad network of nonprofits and local governments and supports them in developing plans, programs, and policies that transform their communities into vibrant places where people respect each other and everyone’s talents are valued and cultivated.[vii] On the other hand, BBB is a network of faith, law enforcement, and business leadership that promotes immigration policies that will provide opportunity, skills, and lawful status to new Americans.[viii] Through roundtables, strategy sessions, and visits to lawmakers, BBB has advocated for comprehensive immigration reform that respects the rule of law, human rights, and economic growth.[ix]

These two collaborations enriched my law school experience by giving me practical experiences and by strengthening my skillsets such as legal research, public speaking, professional judgment, problem solving, leadership, and collaboration. During the Welcoming America event, my partner and I presented an Asylum 101 info-session attended by students and State College community members. The goal of the presentation was to give information to audience members who might benefit from the basic information we delivered about asylum and refugee law in the United States. We hoped to debunk any misconceptions regarding refugee and asylum law by providing accurate data and by sharing personal stories and actual events that affect the refugee crisis in the world. An LLM (Master of Laws Degree) student from Honduras shared her experiences as a public defender in her home country. She was able to paint an effective picture of how U.S. refugee and asylum laws affect her fellow Honduran citizens.

During the BBB event, the Clinic hosted a forum at which leaders from the business, labor, faith, and legal perspectives offered their points-of-view regarding comprehensive immigration reform. I was fortunate enough to represent the Clinic and offered my perspective regarding comprehensive immigration reform from the legal standpoint, particularly focusing on the reforms needed in family-based and employment-based immigration systems. I was also able to relate my personal immigration story as to why reforms are needed in the family-based immigration system. When the audience members learned that it took 22 years for my family to immigrate to the United States from the Philippines, they were able to recognize the importance of immigration reform.[x] The audience members were able to see through my story the difficulty many immigrant families go through because of separation, which has a direct negative impact towards the productiveness and effectiveness in the assimilation process of new Americans. Having the opportunity to speak to the audience directly was an effective way of delivering the message because it gave them a personal connection to the problem, rather than just reading about it on a pamphlet or a website. Being part of the BBB panel was one of my most favorite moments in the Clinic, where my personal story helped others recognize that there is a problem that needs to be addressed relating to the family-based immigration system.

My experience at the Clinic gave me the proper tools to become an effective spokesperson and advocate, which will be especially helpful for my career in the future, whether it be in immigration or a different field. The Clinic has also taught me to become compassionate and to value the relationships I form along the way. I have been in the United States for more than 10 years now and I am excited for what I can contribute in my community in the future once I am a practicing attorney.


[i] As defined by Immigration and Nationality (McCarran) Act §101(b)(1), 8 U.S.C.A. § 1101(b)(1), a child is under the age of 21 and unmarried.

[ii] Immigration Backlogs are Separating American Families, National Immigration Forum (Jul. 26, 2012), https://immigrationforum.org/blog/immigration-backlogs-are-separating-american-families/#_ftnref4 (2012).

[iii] Immigration and Nationality (McCarran) Act § 203(a)(4), 8 U.S.C.A. § 1153(a)(4) (2006).

[iv] Visa Bulletin for January 2017, United States Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs (Dec. 12, 2016), https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bulletin/2017/visa-bulletin-for-january-2017.html.

[v] Immigration Act of 1990 (Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990).

[vi] Welcoming America, https://www.welcomingamerica.org (last visited Oct. 20, 2017).

[vii] Welcoming America, https://www.welcomingamerica.org (last visited Oct. 20, 2017).

[viii] Natural Allies for Immigration Reform, National Immigration Forum, http://immigrationforum.org/programs/bibles-badges-business/.

[ix] Natural Allies for Immigration Reform, National Immigration Forum, http://immigrationforum.org/programs/bibles-badges-business/.

[x] Meredith S.H. Higashi & Ronald H. Lee, Family Ties: A Closer Look at the Problem with Our Family-Based Immigration System, Immigration Impact (Oct. 27, 2009), http://immigrationimpact.com/2009/10/27/family-ties-a-closer-look-at-the-problem-with-our-family-based-immigration-system/.

 

Citation: Carlos Briggs Camandang, My Immigration Story: From Mindoro, Philippines to State College, PA, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration9

Carlos Briggs Camandang

Carlos Camandang immigrated with his family to the United States in 2006 from the Philippines. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles and Penn State Law, where he was a student at the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. He is starting as an associate at McCormick Barstow in Fresno, California in September 2018.

Class of 2018

La Salvadoreña Adoptada: A Journey to Discovery and Understanding

by Bethany Parry

Section 1: Finding Myself

In May 2014, I found myself in a place of confusion. I took the November 2013 LSAT and had hoped to begin law school the next fall. However, I felt drawn to take time to reflect on my college experience and begin a phase of life devoted to serving the immigrant community. I briefly worked a post-graduation internship in order to save money, then began to work at Catholic Charities, Diocese of Allentown and Immigrant Hope: Brooklyn. I took a “crash course” on immigration law and threw myself into my work completely. At the same time, I began a relationship with my husband, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. Although I had wanted to practice immigration law before I met him, he was able to teach me what it means to struggle with poverty, lack of education, and extreme violence. He gave me the ability to empathize with people that I do not think I would have had otherwise. He came from a family of 10 children and felt it his obligation to come to the United States to put food on the table. His father had left the family with little support and was not working to sustain the needs of his children. Although my husband only went to school through the second grade, his view on life showed me how skewed my aspirations were. I had wanted to become an immigration lawyer before we had met, but I never really understood (and probably never will be able to fully understand) the struggles of poverty and the love that the immigrant community has for its members and outsiders willing to listen.

To this day, I have to wonder how I ended up where I am. I have done work with non-profits and law firms, but I do not have a clear aim of where I plan to end up after graduation. I cannot say what I really hope my future holds, only that I am able to live with my husband in a safe and loving place with a family of my own. Living under the Trump administration has been one of the most difficult journeys of my life and I bring myself to tears often thinking of my uncertain future. I am sure that many people with undocumented family members have explored their “options” and know full well that living outside of the United States may be a harsh reality, at least for a time. I have struggled to come to terms with the drastic changes brought about through executive orders and spent the entirety of February through May 2017 lying in bed, falling into a depression and struggling to do even the most basic of functions. The most important tasks took a back burner, including studies and other relationships. The curve, however, does not take into account if my husband has immigration problems or if I am just barely able to get out of bed to go to class. I always felt the need to be honest about my husband’s legal situation, but hesitant to share any details about how the situation was truly impacting me emotionally. Thankfully, my husband is stronger than I am and he has given me hope that kind, generous, and positive people continue to exist in the world.

I was born into a “standard” middle class family in the suburbs of Pennsylvania. I would describe myself as a headstrong individual, probably with a tendency to talk too much but with a drive to help the helpless. My parents were always generous to other people and I would say that I was very fortunate in every way. I never felt the fear of poverty or the reality of racism. I would classify my attitude as that of a blissful ignorance. My family was always generous and my parents worked extremely hard for everything that they had. I remember a happy childhood, laced with the usual ups and downs of growing up. In high school, I had a passion for Spanish and was drawn to diplomacy and international travel. The idea of interacting with people from all over the world sounded like an amazing opportunity and I wanted to be able to see and do many things in many places.

In college, I began to learn about a diverse world and had the opportunity to study in Chile. My experience as an outsider impacted me emotionally and reaffirmed my desire to make every person in the United States feel wanted and welcome. Professors pushed me to expand my understanding of America’s role in the world and how many people see this country as a place of hope, only to find that they cannot fully participate in society. About one year before graduation, I met my husband. We talked about everything from his family, to our varying interests, to his dangerous and scary journey to the United States. He told me about times when he thought he would die or about his mother, who he had not seen for over eight years. It was at this time that I felt compelled to pursue my legal career wholeheartedly. I realized how much opportunity I had in life, meaning I would need to use my skills to help people come out of the shadows and live fulfilling lives. I wanted to become a lawyer before this time period. However, today I wonder if my motivations grew from a desire to use Spanish and a “need to be needed.” I had vague aspirations to become a lawyer before I met my husband, so this career path seemed to logically make sense, without a real emotional connection to even my family’s difficult immigrant history. I hoped to have a stable and enjoyable job, with a means to put food on the table. The flaw in my aspiration, however, came from my lack of insight and the inability to relate to people of all backgrounds.

Even though my husband only has a second-grade education, he has insight into human nature that I will never understand. He faced homelessness, death threats, malnutrition, and abuse. I cannot express how proud I am that he has been able to learn new skills and overcome the emotional turmoil that would have killed so many others. He has given so much to his family and has a heart that will keep on giving. I have seen him give money he cannot afford to give in order to rebuild his parents’ home after an earthquake and donate money to send the body of his cousin home after an untimely death. The scars that he has from working and from his past have made him into a gentle individual with a strong drive to provide. He has wiggled himself into the fabric of my family because of his past experiences and I could not be more appreciative of the support I have had throughout this entire process.

Section II: Finding Family

My husband’s family also has left a lasting impact on my life. As a child, my brother-in-law, Juan, grew up in a gang-infested area with little hope of any future. In 2014, Juan was brutally attacked by local gang members of Barrio 18, a group that rules the countryside in El Salvador. He was dragged to a mountain and nearly murdered by the thugs who call themselves gang members. Luckily, a friend stopped the execution, but the threat of murder continued. Since Juan had family in the United States, he was at a higher risk of kidnapping for extortion. Juan was forced to flee to the United States for his life. He went to the police before leaving, who essentially could do nothing to protect him and often are bribed or influenced by gangs. Although some of the gang members were eventually taken into custody, the threats continued from the strongholds in Ilobasco, a large city in El Salvador. Unfortunately, some of the gang members eventually crossed into the United States, as well, and Juan has no idea where they are or what they are doing. When Juan entered the United States, he was placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement because he was a minor.[i] Eventually, he was released into the custody of his aunt, but had to work construction instead of going to school. He eventually was able to win justice when the Asylum Office granted him asylum and immigration proceedings were terminated.

What many people do not realize is that after winning asylum, the story does not end for asylees when their cases are won. Personally, I imagine that their pain and their struggles never truly end. I still receive phone calls about Juan’s fear of deportation or people hurting his family members. I have tried to speak to Juan on multiple occasions about his past, but he cannot bring himself to even describe the trauma that he has been through and I do not want to be the person to cause him more pain. He has physical scarring to his ribcage and shuts down emotionally when the subject is brought up. Nobody in the family has valued an education, but he is currently attending high school and passing with excellent grades with the help of ESL teachers. He hid his past from his teachers, who had no way of knowing his asylee status and trying to connect him with the best help possible. Few people have tried to advocate for him and his future, even though he has monetary support from family members. The entirety of the situation breaks my heart when I see his hands shake and his eyes glance away. However, his beautiful personality and his desire to live his new life have given me hope for him and others like him.

Section III: My Clinic Experience

Juan’s story and my intimate connection to his well-being added to my passion for Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants Rights’ Clinic’s (“Clinic”) work. Within the first weeks of entering the Clinic, my partner, Carlos, and I were assigned an important and new task: we were to organize an event that would educate individuals on the important elements of asylum as part of Welcoming America’s Welcoming Week. Welcoming America, an organization that I grew very familiar with, truly embraces the ideals of diversity as a positive addition to communities.[ii] They celebrate refugees and aim to make communities more inclusive for all members, regardless of race or nationality. Being able to organize such an event left me feeling personally challenged and emotionally convicted to provide accurate and complete information. I had experienced the personal fear and endless stress that asylum cases can bring to families. I felt extremely invested in making the event a success, specially reaching out to the international communities of State College in order to make a lasting and positive impact. In the wake of the election, the Clinic played a special role in the community in order to bring sound advice and expectation. The “Asylum 101” event opened the doors of the school to groups of people who were scared or wanted to become more educated on immigration topics that impact community members. While working on the project, I found it easy to feel both discouraged and extremely lucky. So many children facing the horrific violence of Barrio 18 or the Mara Salvatrucha have been denied asylum and forced to return home to their potential deaths or torture because they do not fit a limited definition of “particular social group.” Even though I knew about many of the asylum requirements before the “Asylum 101” project, I was emotionally impacted by the need for information in the community and the human element that an in-person event added. Carlos and I spent countless hours researching asylum and trying to make the project interactive. I cannot begin to describe the time I spent trying to piece together what was needed to make the presentation brief with all the legally relevant information necessary. Professor Wadhia certainly played a huge role in the construction. I am grateful for her guidance because I am positive that it significantly helped at least a few members of the audience and educated others on the realities of the world. This has made me even more passionate to fight for justice by individuals who seek protection in the United States.

It is easy to write about such events, but the actual stories of such people deserve to be told with the emotion and compassion that reflects the soul. I only hope that through this essay, some people will feel emotionally impacted to make a difference in whatever their walk-in life. I have formed my future on the basis of the love and kindness that I have received. Certainly, many members of the immigrant community are surprised when they hear my story or wonder where I learned to speak Spanish like a “Salvadoreña.” I hope to use my life to promote positivity in every immigrant’s life. I understand the hopelessness that many people feel. My personal journey with the American immigration court system has just begun, and the fear that I have cannot be described by words on a page. I have learned, however, that individuals can make an impact in their profession. I may not be able to relate to everything that minority individuals face in life, but I hope that my story serves as encouragement to others facing adversity, even those in the legal profession. Taking action may not lead to immediate resolution, but it is a starting place for those who seek justice and peace. I have found Penn State Law and Professor Wadhia’s clinic to be a place of hope and support. The compassion that I have seen for the immigrant community inspired me to apply to Penn State and, ultimately, the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. The passion that I have seen come from each student in the clinic has left me with hope for the future and a desire to more fully participate in society. I have felt nothing but respect and inclusion from event participants in the state college community and have seen amazing things happen from impossible situations. Although I do not know exactly what the future holds, I am confident that my membership in the clinic will influence how I interact with clients in the future and i look forward to impacting individual lives in meaningful way.


[i] Unaccompanied Alien Children, Office of Refugee Resettlement, https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/programs/ucs.

[ii] Welcoming America: About Us, https://www.welcomingamerica.org/about/who-we-are (last visited Oct. 20, 2017).

 

Citation: Bethany Parry, La Salvadoreña Adoptada: A Journey to Discovery and Understanding, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration10

Bethany Parry

Bethany Parry is a 2018 graduate of Penn State Law.

Class of 2018
Bethany Parry

A Journey Forward

by Shushan Sadjadi

I am currently a law school student at Penn State Law. Many of my classmates tell me they knew since childhood that they would attend law school. My experience has been different. I did not start out knowing what I wanted to do with my life, not even during college and thereafter. In fact, it was only as a 31-year old, second year, law student in the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic that I realized what I wanted to do.

When I graduated high school, I only knew one thing for sure: I wanted to get out of Las Vegas, Nevada. I was born in Southern California, but when I was five, my parents moved our family to Las Vegas, because, at the time, the public education system was better. It was at the young age of five that I vowed to get back to California, so when I graduated high school, I went to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

UCSB is a beautiful campus located directly on the ocean, so my first year of college was spent tanning, surfing, and figuring out what my major would be. I flip-flopped between biology and anthropology before finally settling on a math major. I genuinely did not know what I wanted to do for my career, but I figured that I had always been good at math and that math would be a useful major for a variety of professions. I made my way through my undergraduate years and, during my fourth year, I realized I would be done with my major a semester early.[i] Since I did not want to graduate early, I consulted the course catalog to see if there was any minor I could opt for, and, as it turned out, I was able to take a few classes and pick up a minor in education and applied psychology during my last semester before graduation.

After I graduated, the only thing I was sure of was my desire to travel. I still had no grand ideas for what was ahead, but the education minor had made me consider teaching. Almost half of my extended family members are teachers, as is my mother, and as was my father, and I had always been convinced that I did not want to be a teacher. But with college behind me, and my entire adult life and student loan bills in front of me, I decided to consider teaching as a possible career path.

I knew that teaching was not for everyone, so I decided that I would test myself by becoming a substitute teacher in Las Vegas. I figured I would be able to live with my parents while working in the Las Vegas public schools as a sub while I decided whether or not teaching was the right career path for me. As it turned out, I was great at teaching, and despite looking like I was a high school student myself, I had effective classroom management skills that led to my being regularly requested as a sub for specific teachers and schools. So, it was settled! I was going to teach, and I started to look into graduate degrees in math education, hoping that the need for good math teachers would allow me to travel the country teaching.

With my career goal determined and my applications in, I set off to backpack the South Pacific. I spent a few weeks in Fiji with a friend who had joined me from home, but once I got to New Zealand, I was all by myself. I made new friends who I would travel with for a few days or more, then I would move on, in search of my own story. Having had months to be completely independent and autonomous from everything in “adult life” allowed me to reflect on who I was as a person, and I learned to embrace the inner me and feel confident in who I was, while also realizing that, my entire life I had been forcing myself to act straight, but really, I had been gay all along — but that is another story, for another time.

During my travels, I committed to spontaneity and experiencing things I knew I would never have an opportunity to experience again — like bungee jumping, hang gliding, and scuba diving, knowing full well that I would be too scared to do those things when I got older. My entire life, I had been such a planner, ensuring every hour of my calendar was filled with what I needed to get done. I learned that, by letting go of plans, and letting the day guide itself, I would almost always end up much better off than had I planned the day in advance. Sure, this led to uncomfortable moments, like the day I flew into Sidney all alone and realized the entire city was booked for gay pride; but those scary moments always opened the way to amazing discoveries, like when I discovered a beautiful island called Manly Beach where, after I could not find a place in Sidney, I ended up staying for a week. It was on a beach farther north in Australia that I learned I had gotten into Columbia’s math education Master’s degree program. When I got back home, I packed my bags and headed to Manhattan, where I had some of the most incredible experiences of my life.

After I got my degree, I taught for five years, starting at a public school in Harlem that took high achieving, low-income students zoned for poorer schools, and gave them the opportunity to attend Columbia by high school, for high school and university credits. I then moved to Miami and taught at a private school for young athletes, before moving to a private school in Silicon Valley, California, for my last three years in education. In my last year teaching, I also worked at the administrative level in technology. It was then that I realized the limits of growth in education without major policy reform, nationwide, and left teaching to pursue work where I could have a greater impact in the world.

I started a tutoring business in Las Vegas while looking into avenues for education policy reform. I quickly realized law school was a necessity for many of the positions I was seeking. I signed up for the LSAT and began working for a criminal defense attorney as a technology consultant and office assistant. I fell in love with the courtroom and the adversarial proceedings, and I was ecstatic when I did well on the LSAT and received offers to nearly all of the law schools I applied to. I was lucky because of my timing. Law school applications were at an all-time low and schools had a high need for qualified applicants. Penn State offered me a full-ride scholarship, and their standing, combined with their highly qualified professors, made my choice easy, and I began working on my JD in the fall of 2015.

I have been at Penn State Law for nearly two years, and it has easily been my most rewarding educational experience. One particularly impactful experience has been my mentor pairing from the law school’s Minority Mentor Program. I was paired with Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, who is a leading expert in immigration law. She sparked my interest in learning more about immigration law, and she accepted me into her Clinic for my first semester of my 2L year.

My Immigration Story

I have never understood people’s aversion to immigrants because it seemed so hypocritical based on the way the country was founded. My parents have different backgrounds, in terms of immigration stories, both of which have led me to my personal philosophy on immigration.

I have the blessing of a maternal aunt who is very into research on Ancestry.com, and I have learned that my mother’s side came over on the Mayflower, and that my ancestors were very much involved with the building of our nation as we know it, today. We are related to John Adams, as well as a number of other historical figures. Since emigrating from Europe in the early days of our nation, my family has continued to exist for many generations. On my father’s side, I am a first-generation American. But I will let him tell his story.

In 1973, I arrived in the United States as a 23-year old kid on a tourist visa secured in what was then West Germany, where I grew up. Following some inquiries, I was granted admission to a college. The admission was not by chance. The Iranian student community was the largest international student body then, and, overall, they had established a respectable record.

Having secured a letter of financial support from a relative in Germany, I was granted a student visa, but it was temporary, and the ritual of visa renewal was an annual one; it was contingent on (1) continued financial support from abroad, (2) full-time student status, and (3) an overall GPA of B. The full-time status was no problem; in fact, I had to petition almost every fall and spring to take a course load in excess of 18 semester units. The GPA was not an issue either as it hovered between the two top grades, flirting more with the one held in high esteem, rather than the B you had to work so incredibly hard for.

The financial end was tough. Often, and for days, I had just an emergency dime in my pocket. The dime was to buy me a phone call at the nearest booth; that’s when calls were connected for a dime. Of course, you didn’t think about the scenarios that would require subsequent calls and additional dimes.

Things progressed until the game-changer year. 1979! The Shah was driven out in February; and in November, Americans were taken hostage at the US Embassy in Tehran. The cognitive dissonance of the moment captured the collective breath and for many with memories still intact, the time to exhale has yet to arrive. Sandwiched between those months was the completion of my Ph.D. qualifying examination that would allow me to begin work on my dissertation.

But the dynamics had changed. The revolution in Iran was no longer just about regime change; it had become a change in direction and orientation.

The struggle was on to adjust to the new realities and to figure out where to go from here and what to do. I had to come up with a different destination that would be my professional life. I had no Plan B. There never was the need for a Plan B. To exaggerate, you went to school to become a physician. That was the plan. Why think of becoming an astronomer or fortune teller!

As I began to construct a new direction, there was a sudden jolt. With the sweltering hostage crisis in 1980, I was summoned to report to Immigration (INS) for interrogation. I had to face uncertainties many times before, but this was different. The circumstances were different. The histories were different. All I could think of was deportation. But where would I be deported to…Iran…West Germany…some Arab country that had agreed to taking in x-number of deportees? Before leaving to report to the INS, I asked my future spouse to contact an immigration lawyer should I be detained for deportation.

Deportation! Nothing changes your entire being like the fright of such an overpowering force. You are thinking cages, detention centers, being shipped out, being sent back like unwanted cargo.

The floor of the INS building was packed with Iranian nationals, not all were students. There were no smiles, not much interaction. We all seemed busy with our self-imposed interrogatives awaiting our own answers, and all we did with each answer was to add weight to the probing side of the scale.

I was called into the interrogation room. It was a big assembly area, a sort of cattle-call arena with government people at government desks asking government questions. There, in that vast phantom setting, I was fingerprinted and my mug shots were taken while I was positioned against a column with a height marker. What it felt like was being positioned against a pole for the firing squad.

The long interrogation followed. It stopped at some point. I walked out of the building. But the memory of that day has yet to end as does the unceasing memory of captivity for and of those 52 Americans and their affected families.

We had to postpone our wedding again and again because my mother and sister were routinely denied visa requests to be at our ceremony. Repeat attempts to secure a visa between 1979 and 1984 were unsuccessful. The revolution dictated uncertainties; and the ensuing hostage crisis, the saber-rattling and the volleying of accusations were not confidence inducers for the visa issuing folks. The assumption was that my mother and sister, citizens of a country that had lost its favored nation status, would be seeking asylum, becoming a public charge and never leave the United States.

Aided by my future in-laws, we approached elected officials for help. Nothing worked. Time had to run its course, allowing for pulse rates to drop down to the cadence of logic. We tied the proverbial knot, and through captured photographs we shared the joys of the moment in the glare of the time’s sorrows.

Still a student working on my dissertation, following our wedding, I was able to apply for and, with the help of an immigration attorney, secure permanent residency. An attorney was not necessary, but the climactic context dictated for steps to be taken prescriptively rather than daringly.

We had to supply marriage certificates, photographs, birth certificates, copies of wedding invitations and whatnot to show that this was not just a wedding of convenience, or, surreptitiously, some sort of a financial arrangement. The INS was more in tune with the few scams than the legitimate masses.

About four months after the application for residency, I received my “Green Card” (the Alien Registration card going well into the Seventies was green in color, hence the term “Green Card” — the ones that followed, including the one I received, were beige, but the green card label is enshrined).

The years went by and mother was finally granted a temporary visa to be in the United States for the birth of her granddaughter. My sister, too, was eventually able to secure a visa to be present for the birth of her nephew.

Ten years after our wedding, I applied for U.S. citizenship and went through the naturalization process. Again, all documents supplied for my permanent residency had to be furnished, plus income tax returns and everything about my background in Germany and Iran. I took the required test and was sworn in. I was no longer a registered alien, a legitimate living thing from outer space. I was dipped in some invisible solution that caused naturalization. And — voila! — the unborn was born.

People opting for the United States, or any country of their choice, do so because they seek a better life, an opportunity, freedom, the liberating sense of unchained thoughts; and by doing so, they point to and underscore our similarities.

My two differing family backgrounds have led me to have the opinion that immigration, and the desire to migrate, is a basic human instinct. The “travel-bug,” as well as the need to flee locations that are threatening, have led to humans populating nearly every part of the world. No other animal has populated the Earth in such a diverse way like humans have. In my opinion, this is because something in us drives us to move to places where we can feel safe and create a home. Given this tendency, I feel the US immigration policy of preventing entry of those seeking safety or a new home is both barbaric and hypocritical. In order to be the country, we claim to be, founded on claims of a land, free from oppression, we should be a welcoming country with nearly open borders.

The Clinic

The Clinic was an incredible experience in nearly every way. I gained a plethora of knowledge about the things I did not know that I did not know. The experience was overwhelming, but truly, one of the most valuable experiences that I have had in law school.

I was assigned to a project reporting the conditions of two, privately owned, immigration detention centers. I read of the painful experiences of people in the detention centers and understood their cries for help in a way that will stay with me forever. As I began researching the centers, and learning of the inhumane treatment in the facilities, I became more and more fascinated by the private prison system and the perverse incentives corporate prison entities encourage. I was motivated to soak up as much information as possible to continue understanding the problems of these detention centers and consider the options for working toward solutions. The more I learned about the private prison companies, generally, and their involvement with the government, the more I understood why many of our social disparities exist.

When I started my research on the detention centers, I did not realize what I was getting into. Among other things, I was tasked with creating vignettes from detainee interviews and interviews with their attorneys. I began with the attorneys who told me of their experiences. The attorneys were consistently treated poorly by the staff of the private prisons, sometimes they were prevented from meeting with clients based on arbitrary rules, after traveling hours or days to get there. The attorneys made it clear that there was a systematic issue with the staff and their need to be in the position of power.

The detainee stories were much worse. Stories of rapes ignored, highly unsanitary living conditions, basic needs not met, and little to no access to the world outside of the walls of the private prisons. I read pages and pages of tragedy: a young boy picked up on his way to school because he had turned 18; mothers separated from children after calling police on abusive partners; refugees trying to escape horrible conditions in other countries only to be held in conditions comparable; and the list goes on. One story that is memorable is of one ex-felon who was detained after serving a prison sentence in a maximum-security prison. He explained that the maximum-security prison offered considerably better living conditions and amenities than the detention center, which was dirty, nearly windowless, and offer no education opportunities.

A few things stood out for me from these experiences. The conditions of these private prisons did not meet basic human rights standards. People consistently reported being given clothing that was torn or unclean, including undergarments, with which they are only provided a few. The water was consistently reported to smell and look bad; in fact, one lawyer had a telling story of a time she went to drink out of a drinking fountain and was alerted by a guard that she should not drink from it. Nearly every interview stated the food was terrible: both rancid and lacking any quality ingredients. I learned that private prisons are not accountable for these violations, and that they are simply supposed to follow them with no accountability or civil liability for violations.

As I learned about these common experiences of detainees, a few problems became abundantly clear about these for-profit private prisons. First, the private prison companies overpopulate the prison facilities, filling every bed to the extent possible, as it is most profitable for them. At the same time, they do not properly train their guards nor do they have sufficient staff members, including medical staff. The second problem is that these private prisons do not provide new or clean or enough clothing to the prisoners upon intake, nor do they provide them with a sufficient amount of hygiene products. The result is that detainees are forced to purchase basic sanitary items from commissary, items that are generally sold at inflated prices (as are the phone rates). The third problem is the voluntary work problem, which is the only way for detainees to get money, aside from having it be sent by family members. The problem with the voluntary work problem is that it pays little to nothing; sometimes $1 per day, and sometimes payment in extra meals.

It is important to note that these are detainees and not prisoners, which means that these private companies are employing detainees to complete necessary jobs at virtually no cost. Thus, detainees must work weeks to make enough money to buy basic necessities and make phone calls, while the private prison company profits off of their indentured servitude, as the private prisons have basically free employees, who give all of their money back to the prisons through commissary and phone calls.

My Professional Future

I started law school thinking that I may pursue policy work, but changed my mind once I started learning more about law. I have a substantial amount of debt from student loans from the combination of my three degrees, so I know I will need to work at a firm in order to quickly pay off that debt, which is what I will be doing when I graduate school. It was the Clinic that renewed a fire in me to create change, and it is the detention center report project I was assigned that opened my eyes to the changes that must be made to eliminate the socio-economic disparities and racial injustices of our nation. I have, thus, made the decision to work at a firm until I have paid off my debts, and then begin my assent into the world of government, to make the meaningful change that needs to occur to better our country.

My goal is to become the Governor of Nevada and create major changes on a state level, in order to demonstrate the positive changes that can be made on the national level. My realizations of the roots of many of our nation’s problems led me to understand the necessity of having state and federal leadership with the capacity to understand what needs to be done to both remedy past injustices and prevent further injustices from happening in our nation. My plan for change involves two projects, to start, that would ideally improve the state’s economy, provide jobs to state citizens, and provide opportunities and freedom from discrimination for noncitizens and felons, while simultaneously benefiting the environment.

Closing

I will forever be indebted to Professor Wadhia and the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants’ Rights for opening my eyes to the roots of our nation’s issues, and for sparking a desire to research topics that I may never have considered before joining the Clinic. My life’s goals have changed because of my experience with the Clinic, and I hope to be able to significantly contribute to the changes this nation needs to make in order to eliminate the disparities that the country and its people have endured for far too long.


[i] UCSB works on a trimester or quarter system, but for simplicity I will refer to it as a semester.

 

Citation: Shushan Sadjadi, A Journey Forward, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration11

Shushan Sadjadi

Shushan Sadjadi is a 2018 graduate of Penn State Law. She will begin as an associate at The Law Offices of Greg Knapp, Esq. in fall 2018.

Class of 2018
Shushan Sadjadi

Excerpts from Clinic Publications

Community and Education


Immigrant's Rights: Rethinking Reentry InfographicRethinking Reentry: Prosecution, Defense and Human Rights Perspectives

The Penn State Law Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic led a discussion on illegal entry and reentry prosecutions under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1325-1326. The panel discussion featured Peter J. Smith, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania; Heidi Freese, assistant federal public defender for the Middle District of Pennsylvania; Grace Meng, senior researcher for the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch; and Lori Ulrich, assistant federal public defender for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

April 21, 2016 Rethinking Reentry Press Release and Additional Materials


Penn State Law Takeaway Materials from Immigration Raid PanelTakeaway Materials from the Panel Discussion about the June 2014 Immigration Raid in State College, PA

This is a compilation of all the materials provided to the event attendees. The materials include: a program pamphlet, a postcard with a personal account of a noncitizen living in State College (in both English and Spanish), an immigration myths-and-facts brochure, slides from Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia’s presentation during the panel discussion, and the event flier.

Held November 18, 2014

Practitioner Tools


Practitioner's ToolKit on Cancellation or Removal for Lawful Permanent Residents, 2016Practitioner’s Toolkit on Cancellation of Removal for Lawful Permanent Residents

Created on behalf of the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center (PIRC), the toolkit is a resource for immigration attorneys representing lawful permanent residents who are facing removal from the United States.

The 2016 toolkit includes information about:

  • aggravated felonies,
  • detention,
  • the discretionary component of Cancellation of Removal,
  • who is ineligible for LPR Cancellation of Removal,
  • steps to take to apply for LPR Cancellation of Removal,
  • steps for obtaining client records, and
  • alternative remedies.

May 16, 2016 Cancellation of Removal Toolkit Press Release

Policy Reports

October 22, 2013


Immigration Relief for Victims of Abuse and Domestic Violence: A Practitioner's Guide to Serving Non-Citizens, July 2012 Immigration Relief for Victims of Abuse and Domestic Violence

by the Centre County Women’s Resource Center’s Civil Legal Representation Project

Advocates and attorneys who work with victims of domestic violence need to understand the dynamics of power and control and how they affect the safety of their clients. This understanding is especially important in working with non-citizen victims who often face additional hurdles compared to American citizens. The Penn State Law Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic has published Immigration Relief for Victims of Abuse and Domestic Violence, a toolkit to help practitioners in representing immigrant victims of domestic abuse.

Published July 17, 2012


Leveling the Playing Field: Reforming the H-2B Program to Protect Guestworkers and U.S. WorkersLeveling the Playing Field: Reforming the H-2B Program to Protect Guestworkers and U.S. Workers

by Penn State Dickinson School of Law and the National Guestworker Alliance

This report highlights cases of exploitation from Texas to Tennessee, and calls for four indispensable reforms that would end employer abuse and protect both guest workers and U.S. workers:

  • Guaranteeing guest workers the right to organize without fear of retaliation;
  • Prohibiting employers from using guest workers as cheap, exploitable alternatives to U.S. workers;
  • Eliminating debt servitude and other elements of human trafficking in the program; and
  • Subjecting employers to meaningful government enforcement and community oversight.

June 21, 2012 Reforming H-2B Press Release


The One-Year Asylum Deadline and the BIA: No Protection, No ProcessThe One-Year Asylum Deadline and the BIA: No Protection, No Process

by the National Immigrant Justice Center and Human Rights First

The right to seek asylum from persecution is a fundamental and long-recognized human right. The United States committed to protecting refugees in 1967 when it signed the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees and later enacted legislation to incorporate the Protocol’s key provisions into domestic law. Despite these commitments, in 1996 Congress enacted a filing deadline for asylum applications which has resulted in potentially denying protections to thousands of legitimate refugees.

October 21, 2010 One-Year Asylum Deadine Press Release

 

For more publications by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic, please visit their website at https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/practice-skills/clinics/center-immigrants-rights 

Closing

by Hari M. Osofsky, Dean, Penn State Law and School of International Affairs

The Contributions of Clinical Legal Education on Immigration

This wonderful collection of essays highlights the important contributions of clinical legal education generally and of immigration clinics in particular. I am so inspired by the work of Professor Wadhia and our Penn State Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic students.

Clinical legal education first began in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, but expanded significantly in the 1970s with the support of the Ford Foundation. Initiatives by the Ford Foundation, Soros Foundation, American Bar Association, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, World Bank, and International Development Bank have supported the expansion of this form of education around the world.[i] These courses serve two goals simultaneously: (1) providing students with experiential learning that helps prepare them for practice and (2) serving critical social need.

These essays reflect the ways in which the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic has embodied these goals. This clinic has given our students the opportunity to learn by working with clients on important immigration issues. Their stories indicate how that client-based work allowed them to learn in ways that go far beyond the traditional classroom. Their work in this clinic helped prepare them to be better lawyers and many of them have continued social justice work in a variety of ways.

At least as importantly, the Center for Immigrant’s Rights Clinic has helped meet critical social needs. It has assisted immigrants who needed representation and worked to influence immigration policy. Its work has been highly collaborative, giving our students an opportunity to work together with leading organizations assisting immigrants. And the clinic’s work has served our State College and Penn State community, improving an understanding of our immigration laws.

What is particularly striking about these essays is how they convey these students’ work in the clinic in the context of their broader life narratives. Our clinics’ students come from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences — a number of them are themselves immigrants. The essays convey how they came to be interested in immigration issues, what they learned from working in the clinic, and how their career evolved from there. I am so impressed with the many ways in which they are helping society.

Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrant’s Rights Clinic has served our students and society for a decade. As the new dean this fall, I have been proud to have this clinic serving critical needs at a moment in which much legal uncertainty exists. From interpreting President Trump’s executive orders to providing information to Penn State’s dreamers, the clinic has been serving a critical role in our university and local community in helping people understand the rapidly changing landscape.

Professor Wadhia’s leadership has been incredibly impressive — her tireless commitment to making a difference inspires our students and she does a wonderful job of preparing them to lead. The essays describe the role that she has played in our students lives through this clinic, but I have also had a chance to witness it myself this fall. Under her careful supervision, our students have led forums on changing immigration laws with remarkable poise and preparation and created numerous fact sheets and other documents.

I look forward to seeing what this clinic accomplishes in its second decade. I know it will continue to change the lives of our students and the people that it serves. We Are!


[i] See Richard J. Johnson, Training for Justice: The Global Reach of Clinical Legal Education, 22 Penn St. Int’l L. Rev. 421 (2004); Elizabeth A. Keyes, David C. Koelsch & Alejandro Posadas, Clinical Legal Education: A (Brief) Comparison of the Evolving Structures and Pedagogy in Mexico, Canada and the United States, 3 U. Detroit Mercy L. Rev. Online (2015).

 

Citation: Hari M. Osofsky, Closing:The Contributions of Clinical Legal Education on Immigration, in Back Into the Future of Immigration: Personal Stories by the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic (Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia ed., 2018). https://doi.org/10.18113/P8immigration12

Hari M. Osofsky, Dean, Penn State Law and School of International Affairs

Hari M. Osofsky is dean of Penn State Law and the Penn State School of International Affairs and Distinguished Professor of Law, professor of international affairs, and professor of geography. Prior to joining Penn State, Dean Osofsky was the Robins Kaplan Professor of Law; the faculty director of the Energy Transition Lab; and the director of the Joint Degree Program in Law, Science, and Technology at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Photograph of Hari M. Osofsky, Dean, Penn State Law and School of International Affairs