Program Overview
Immigrants have complicated relationships with law and government in the
United States. Immigration, both legal and undocumented, has been one of the
foundations of economic and cultural development throughout U.S. history.
However, it is also true that immigrants are targeted as scapegoats by
law-makers during times of real and illusory threat to U.S. national and
economic security. Law becomes the instrument by which immigrants are deported
and exploited, families are split, and communities of color, particularly, are
subject to subordination. The Immigrant and Refugee Rights Clinic (IRRC)
represents individual and groups of immigrants asserting their right to exist in
the U.S. without fear, exploitation and subordination. Through the
representation of immigrants, we train law students to be excellent public
interest lawyers.
IRRC was one of the first immigration law clinics in the nation and has a
distinguished record of litigation and policy advocacy. Prior incarnations of
the clinic have focused on protecting immigrants’ access to public benefits and
expansion of the legal category of asylum claims on the basis of gender
oppression. Current faculty have practice backgrounds and scholarly interests in
the following areas: defense of asylum-seekers in deportation proceedings,
defense against deportation of legal permanent residents with criminal
convictions, immigrant workers’ rights, and litigation under the Violence
Against Women Act. The clinic is agile because we attempt to meet evolving
community need and because we wish to model a practice of law that is flexible
rather than fixed.
Latest News
January 6, 2010
On January 7th, the D.C Circuit will hear oral argument in the first legal challenge on behalf of detainees at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. CUNY Law's Immigrant & Refugee Rights Clinic and Yale Law School's Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic represent Amin al-Bakri, a citizen of Yemen who was disappeared by the U.S. in 2002, and has been imprisoned at Bagram since 2003 without charges or access to an attorney... More »
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Faculty in the Program
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