The Clinic advocates for clients living in Washington, DC, and the greater metropolitan area and focuses on cases before the Arlington immigration court and Arlington asylum office. Immigration and Human Rights Clinic clients come from all over the world and recently have included individuals from Haiti, Nigeria, Pakistan, Honduras, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Guatemala, Republic of Congo, Venezuela, Ethiopia, and Uganda.

Students in the clinic will gain substantive expertise in humanitarian immigration law, build critical interviewing skills, develop fact investigation, engage in legal analysis and legal writing, along with oral advocacy before the asylum office and/or in immigration court. The Clinic aims to stand beside clients and advocate using trauma-informed, client-centered, and critical lawyering. In supervision and in the Clinic seminar, we wrestle with how to sustainably practice law while serving vulnerable client populations.

The Clinic substance depends on the docket for the semester. In the past, students have engaged in running pro se clinics for families in the DC area seeking to file for asylum protection along with jail visits in partnership with CAIR Coalition. The Clinic has also traveled to serve Afghan evacuees at military bases in Virginia and worked with Al Otro Lado in Tijuana, Mexico, to serve individuals subjected to the Migrant Protection Protocols (also known as “Remain in Mexico”). The Clinic prepares students to advocate for immigrants, with a special focus on asylum seekers.