UNLV Immigration Clinic looking to expand services

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Michael Keegan / Immigration Clinic

Handprint paintings line the wall of the Immigration Clinic at UNLV. When the immigration clinic helps a child client win the right to remain in the United States, they celebrate by adding the client’s handprint painting to the office walls.

Fri, Oct 1, 2021 (7:25 p.m.)

At the UNLV Immigration Clinic, law students assist staff attorneys in local deportation cases involving unaccompanied children and those in detention. 

New funding from the Clark County Commission will boost these services further, strengthening a vital resource during a pandemic that has disproportionately impacted undocumented immigrants.

The $500,000 granted to the clinic will be distributed over two years, matching a similar allocation from Nevada Assembly Bill 376 that was approved earlier in 2021. The funds allow the clinic to open new positions and create an off-campus Community Advocacy Office, both expanding the clinic’s essential services.

“The UNLV Immigration Clinic has become an invaluable resource to residents of Southern Nevada facing deportation proceedings,” said Sara Gordon, interim dean of the UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law, in a statement. “This additional funding will allow us to expand our delivery of free legal services in a location that is accessible to all members of our community, and will give student lawyers in the Clinic the opportunity to practice law closer to the people they are serving.”

Law students in the Immigration Clinic can practice law when supervised by a Nevada-licensed attorney under Nevada Supreme Court Rule 49.5. Their course load equates two classes’ worth of work, clinic director Michael Kagan said.

The clinic is the primary institution in Las Vegas that offers free deportation defense services, Kagan said. It fills a needed gap in Southern Nevada, he said, because the legal system often fails those most in need of an attorney, like those in detention or unaccompanied children.

“Clinical law programs like ours typically try to address needs that are not being met by the private bar adequately,” he said. “It has become very clear, I think, that Las Vegas in particular has been a deportation defense desert.”

In 2016, 210,000 residents were undocumented, according to the most recent data from Pew Research Center published in 2019. A record 44.8 million immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2018, 23% of which are undocumented. That same year, Las Vegas was one of the top 20 U.S. metropolitan areas with the greatest number of immigrants. 

Maria Nieto Orta, state coordinator at Mi Familia Vota, is an undocumented immigrant with temporary Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. With family members fighting deportation cases, Orta said she has witnessed firsthand the harrowing and expensive court processes. 

Appeals and other required fees in immigration courts are $110 each depending on the appeal type. In addition to cost barriers, undocumented immigrants were also not eligible for unemployment benefits or stimulus checks earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“It’s that mental exhaustion of not knowing what’s going to happen to you,” Orta said.

Mi Familia Vota is one organization part of the Nevada Immigrant Coalition (NIC), a local group that amplifies immigrant voices and advocates for better immigration law that was instrumental in getting the Clark County Commission funds passed. 

Other organizations part of NIC are Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, the Culinary Union, Make the Road Nevada, ACLU of Nevada, American Immigration Lawyers Association, Asian Community Development Council, Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, ECDC – African Community Center, Faith in Action Nevada, For Nevada’s Future, ONE APIA Nevada, Planned Parenthood Votes Nevada, SEIU 1107, UndocuNetwork and the Immigration Clinic. 

Rico Ocampo, immigration justice organizer at Make the Road Nevada, said this funding is a hard-fought victory for immigrant communities.

“I have temporary DACA status,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like, when having my parents picked up by [U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] and not having the due process and the fairness of fighting for their case and essentially being having to represent themselves against a trained government attorney. And so, for me, this was deeply personal.”

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