Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic

Joseph Michalakes '16 is the winner of the Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award, chosen 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.

Thirteen Harvard Law School students were selected as the 2016 Cravath International Fellows. The fellows traveled to 12 countries for winter term clinical placements or independent research with an international, transnational, or comparative law focus. Below, four of those students are highlighted.

This is the last in the Harvard Gazette's series on inequality, one of America’s most vexing problems, examining Harvard’s ground-level efforts to make a difference in the surrounding communities, and beyond.

For Bonnie Docherty, a lecturer on law and a senior instructor at the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, the battle to protect civilians from suffering caused by armed conflicts continues.

Supreme Court justices, performance art, student protests and a vice president. A look back at 2015, highlights of the people who visited, events that took place and everyday life at Harvard Law School.

Acknowledge, Amend, Assist: Addressing Civilian Harm Caused by Armed Conflict and Armed Violence, a 28-page report released this week by Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program and Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), seeks to advance understanding and promote collaboration among leaders in the field.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program at HLS, which marked its 30th anniversary this year, trains students to represent refugees seeking asylum in the U.S.

On June 17, about 200 Harvard Law School alumni and students gathered to mark the 30th anniversary of the Harvard Immigration & Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC). It was a celebration of "30 Years of Social Change Lawyering," and it brought together advocates from around the country and the world.

Students witness the journey of the undocumented

For three decades, Deborah Anker has encouraged students to pursue a more generous immigration policy.

Thirty-three professors from Massachusetts law schools have signed on to an important legal opinion drafted by Harvard Law students in support of the Massachusetts Trust Act. The bill seeks to restore the immigrant community’s trust in local law enforcement by limiting the role of local police authorities in the deportation process.

On November 26, 2013, the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic (HIRC) released a comprehensive report titled "Bordering on Failure: Canada-U.S. Border Policy and the Politics of Refugee Exclusion." The report examines Canadian border measures designed to intercept and deflect "undesirable travelers", including asylum seekers, before they set foot on Canadian soil and make a claim for refugee protection.

Harvard Law School alum Margaret Stock '92 is one of 24 recipients of the 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, more commonly known as the MacArthur "Genius Award". Stock is an immigration attorney with a focus on improving the immigration system through direct representation, policy-based advocacy and an emphasis on the idea that immigration does not threaten national security.

Crimmigration—the intersection of criminal law and immigration—is a burgeoning legal area, and one that is of great interest to students, according to Harvard Law School Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor Phil Torrey. This fall, Torrey, who supervises the Harvard Immigration Project's Bond Hearing Representation project, will be offering a new clinical course on the topic.

Last month, as an historic trial continued in Guatemala against a former dictator charged with the genocide of indigenous Mayans, Lauren Herman ’13—a student in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic (HIRC) —stood in court in Boston as a judge announced he was granting asylum to her Mayan client, who, with his family, had suffered persecution for decades before he came to the U.S. in 2009.

Following its second victory, the Harvard Immigration Project’s (HIP) Bond Hearing Project continues its new campaign to provide free legal representation to detained immigrants seeking release from immigration custody.

One afternoon in late July, a 39-year-old African man we will call Jean-Paul took the elevator to the third floor of Harvard Law School’s (HLS) Wasserstein Hall. He walked into the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and was greeted like a hero.