Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program

This year, Brianna Banks was named the 2022 winner of the William J. Stuntz Memorial Award for Justice, Human Dignity, and Compassion, which recognizes a graduating student who has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to the principles of justice, human dignity, and compassion while at Harvard Law School.

Jackson Beard ’22 has known she wanted to be a lawyer since she was 14 — and she can recall the exact moment that set her on her path to Harvard Law School and her future career.

The Harvard Representation Initiative is supporting some Ukranian members of the Harvard community by providing immigration legal representation and social work support, offering options to keep them and their families safe.

Navy veteran Sean Quirk found a home for his interest in U.S.-China relations as a student at HLS — while one of its clinics supported his wife Sue's immigration process.

Linda Heeyoung Park ’21 and Benjamin Antillon Fernandez ’21 are joint recipients of the 2021 David Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award.

Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program's Phil Torrey weighs in on the Biden administration's efforts to address the nation's immigration policies.

In a case brought by the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, a California District Court last week issued a preliminary injunction blocking a Trump administration rule that would gut protections for people fleeing persecution and torture.

Nine HLS students and alumni awarded prestigious Skadden Fellowship for public service.

In recent court victory, students from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program help safeguard the lives of countless asylum seekers by preventing more stringent federal immigration rules from going into effect.

At a virtual ceremony hosted by Dean John F. Manning ’85, 15 members of the Harvard Law School community received the Dean’s Award for Excellence, which recognizes staff members who embody both the letter and spirit of excellence within the Harvard Law School community.

Two clinics at HLS— the Cyberlaw Clinic and the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic—partner on a case involving warrantless device searches at the U.S. border

This year, the Harvard Law School Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs has recognized six students from the Class of 2020 for their outstanding clinical and pro bono work.

Jordana Arias, program administrator of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, received the Suzanne L. Richardson Staff Appreciation Award during Harvard Law School’s Virtual Commencement on Thursday, May 28.

With the aim of advocating for refugees, Niku Jafarnia J.D. / M.P.P.’20 focused on the intersection of refugee rights, armed conflict, and counterterrorism as joint law and public policy student at Harvard.

Years of advocacy by Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program have culminated in a landmark decision recognizing gender as basis for asylum claims.

For the Clinical Program at Harvard Law School, the past weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic have been a time to mobilize. As the clinics have moved to working remotely, their work has continued with new urgency.

HLS students traveled to 25 countries over winter term with the support of the Winter Term International Travel Grant Program.

On Jan. 29, attorneys from HIRC submitted a complaint to the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of their client, an Iranian student who was denied entry to the U.S. despite having a valid visa.

Effective Jan. 1, three faculty members were promoted and two new scholars joined the HLS faculty.

Sabrineh Ardalan ’02, who teaches in the fields of immigration and refugee law and advocacy, was appointed a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School and faculty director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program.

As students, they participated in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. As lawyers, they have continued the work in a field that is increasingly challenging—and fulfilling

In a small trailer, surrounded by hundreds of other trailers, encircled by a fence, in the middle of South Texas scrubland, Brianna Rennix does her…

Five cases argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Twenty-two years of work as a lawyer. And still, Mark Fleming will never forget the woman from…

It helped that she was a first-generation immigrant herself. Sussan Lee could settle into a conversation with her client, a West African immigrant, about the…

Every week, the woman from Guatemala would bring her children. First, she would settle them into chairs to play with their toys. Then the woman,…

1L January Experiential Term courses focus on skills-building, collaboration and self-reflection

Asseret Frausto ’19 is the winner of the Outstanding Clinical Student Award from the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA). The award is presented annually to one student from each law school for outstanding clinical coursework and contributions to the clinical community.

Dalia Deak ’19 is this year’s winner of the individual David Grossman Exemplary Clinical Award, given each year to the student who embodies the pro bono spirit of the late professor and exemplifies putting theory into practice through clinical work.

Lindsay Bailey’19, Lisandra Novo’19 and Elisa Quiroz ’19 are the winners of the team 2019 David Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award.

HLS students spent their spring break working in legal organizations in the Boston area and across the United States and Puerto Rico, often responding to crises or disasters in local areas.

Students and faculty from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program spent a week in Texas volunteering at the Karnes Detention Center, where they met with fathers and sons who had been forcibly separated from each other under President Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. They offer their thoughts on this powerful and eye-opening experience.

On Oct. 22, Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer who spearheaded a national class action lawsuit against the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy on immigrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, spoke to HLS staff and students about the litigation’s claims and the ongoing efforts to reunite families.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program’s Crimmigration Clinic and the Immigrant Defense Project issued two new resources for advocates and attorneys defending the rights of immigrants fighting removal to countries where they will be persecuted.

Clinical education at HLS: Four experiences

The Trump administration’s recent “zero tolerance” policies on immigration resulted in the separation of several thousand children from their families at the U.S. border. Harvard Law alumni from dozens of law firms have pulled together to help reunite children who had been forcibly separated from their families.

Many HLS alumni and students are engaged in legal and advocacy work related to immigration, including the situations of refugees and asylum seekers. For some of these lawyers, this interest predates their time at HLS, but has dovetailed with their coursework and hands-on learning during their time as law students.

The founder and director of Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic Deborah Anker LL.M. ’84 received the Federal Bar Association’s NGO Lawyer of the Year Joint Award on May 18. She was honored alongside Karen Musalo, director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings College of the Law.

More than 100 years after students started the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, there are now 40 clinics and Student Practice Organizations at HLS, focused on everything from cyberlaw to veterans’ rights.

‘Crimmigration’—the intersection of criminal and immigration law—is the newest policy area for the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC). In addition to its broader advocacy clinic, HIRC offers Phil Torrey’s crimmigration clinic in the spring: an opportunity for students to gain direct experience working on and contributing to case law in this young field.

In recognition of their demonstrated excellence in representing clients and undertaking advocacy or policy reform projects, Amy Volz ’18 and Ha Ryong Jung (Michael) ’18 were named the 2018 recipients of the David A. Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award, named in honor of the late Clinical Professor David Grossman ’88.

Three Harvard Law School students, Edith Sangueza ’18, Tabitha Cohen ’18 and Annie Manhardt ’18, received the 2018 Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award for exemplifying a pro bono public spirit and demonstrating an extraordinary commitment to improving and delivering high quality volunteer legal services in low-income communities.

On April 20, HLS in the Community wrapped up a year-long celebration of Harvard Law School's bicentennial by highlighting the contributions made by HLS clinics and students practice organizations (SPOs).

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program joined the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Human Rights First and Kids in Need of Defense in filing a brief of amicus curiae in the case Matter of A-B-, a case that originated in immigration court but that is now before review of the U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 

In 2018, ten Harvard Law School students were selected as Cravath International Fellows. During Winter Term, they traveled to nine countries to pursue clinical placements or independent research with an international, transnational, or comparative law focus. Here, four of them describe their experiences.

At a workshop on immigrants’ rights held Monday morning at the Memorial Church, attorneys Jason Corral and Cindy Zapata of the Harvard Immigration & Refugee Clinical Program shared legal advice on how to deal with the more aggressive enforcement of immigration laws under the Trump administration.

Three Harvard professors and a Ph.D. student in African and African American studies have launched the DACA Seminar, a series of events on campus aimed at sparking conversations about the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and immigration policy and reform, while working to understand options available to Harvard's undocumented students.

In many ways, Jane's life in Kenya was idyllic: She was an educated, confident professional woman with a flourishing career, raising a daughter whom she loved dearly. There was only one problem in her life: her husband, who had become increasingly violent and abusive in the privacy of their own home.