Abstract
Since the 2016 Presidential Election, the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (CIRC) at Penn State Law in University Park has been at the forefront of responding to rapidly changing immigration policies that include the “travel ban,” efforts to end a policy called “DACA”, policies to curb asylum at the southern border, and efforts to more easily exclude international students and scholars. Some of the tools CIRC has used to respond to these changes include easy to understand “fact sheets”, in person and virtual “town halls,” and legal support for individuals fighting deportation or seeking refuge. This essay will use CIRC as a case study to demonstrate how one set of student advocates used the same tools developed over three years of responding to ever-evolving immigration policies to respond to changes surrounding COVID-19. Specifically, we describe CIRC’s responses to changes at international borders, stalemates in immigration detention, expansions to asylum restrictions, and the status of DACA at the Supreme Court. This article explains how the same responses that have long been used to address the current administration's immigration changes can also be used to respond to immigration policy changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay discusses how CIRC responded to each significant immigration policy change arising out of COVID-19, as well as explains how CIRC moved from an in-person to remote platform in spring 2020 alongside many law clinics across the country, shares reflections from those students, and offers lessons that can be drawn for legal education moving forward.
Highlights
Reviewed by: Lindsay Harris, University of the District of Columbia, United States Peter Margulies, Roger Williams University, United States
Since the 2016 Presidential Election, the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (CIRC) at Penn State Law in University Park has been at the forefront of responding to rapidly changing immigration policies that include the “travel ban,” efforts to end a policy called “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA),” policies to curb asylum at the southern border, and efforts to more exclude international students and scholars
This essay will use CIRC as a case study to demonstrate how one set of student advocates used the same tools developed over 3 years of responding to ever-evolving immigration policies to respond to changes surrounding COVID-19
Summary
The work that CIRC does is an example of community lawyering, community legal education, and legislative lawyering, and can serve as an example for other law school clinics, but lawyers and organizations, as well. Education project is launched because it can shape the goal and the limits of any forum Another benefit of community education is described by Barry et al (2012) as follows: “incorporating community legal education into a clinical program with intentionality reinforces the principles that an important part of the lawyer’s professional work involves teaching people about the law and the legal system.”. A legislative lawyer must have the capacity and the temperament to write both sophisticated legal documents and simple grassroots alerts-and to consider both as part of her job”30 She underscores the importance of oral communication: “When a legislative lawyer is engaged in an explanatory communication, he must be able to convey the relevant information clearly and concisely. All three of these models—community lawyers, community education, and legislative lawyering often involve an institutional client such as a non-profit or school district
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