1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic

The 1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic represents Ithaca community members on their immigration matters and also partners with immigrant advocacy organizations on projects that protect and educate the immigrant community throughout Ithaca, New York State, and the U.S. as a whole. Below are some examples of publicly available resources the clinic has cocreated with its community partners, along with descriptions of recent cases and projects in the clinic.

• The clinic works closely with Cornell University’s Dean of Students’ office to provide resources for undocumented and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students, including legal representation and on-going support. For example, in April 2020, clinic students created a list of resources for undocumented students during COVID-19.
• The clinic provides legal information to the public through various public-facing formats. For example, clinic students and faculty presented a webinar to more than 1,000 participants in April 2020 titled “Immigrants, Public Benefits, and COVID-19.” Students also prepared multilingual resources and handouts, available here along with the webinar recording.
• In collaboration with Physicians for Human Rights and other Cornell clinics, students contributed to a webinar titled “Health and Immigration Detention Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic” in June 2020.
• Other presentations have included:
  • Travel to local farms to deliver Know Your Rights presentations and conduct intake screenings in collaboration with the Cornell Farmworker Program and the New York Immigration Coalition
  • Best practices for working with undocumented students to the Cornell University Police Department
  • Undocu-Ally training for Cornell faculty and staff
  • Know Your Rights presentations for Cornell students and Ithaca community members

• The clinic provides representation and/or application assistance for clients applying for DACA and citizenship. We partner with Catholic Charities of Tompkins and Tioga County in this work.
• The clinic has partnered with Journey’s End Legal Services to provide research and writing assistance on asylum cases and with New York State’s Office of New Americans to provide citizenship assistance.
• The clinic occasionally partners with Cornell’s Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic and the Asylum and Convention Against Torture Clinic on immigration cases.
• The clinic partners with Proyecto Dilley to assist asylum-seekers detained in Texas. Clinic students traveled to Dilley, Texas, in January 2019 to volunteer at the country’s largest family detention facility, assisting asylum-seekers with their legal cases. Currently, this work is performed remotely.

Only first-year law students are eligible to take the 1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic. The course is designed to complement the existing rigorous first-year doctrinal and skills courses while adding a real-world lawyering experience to the first year. 1L students may elect to enroll in the course during the 1L elective registration process. Please note that the clinic encourages all 1L students to apply, regardless of language skills, immigration experience, gender, 1L section, or any other identity marker. The clinic is committed to including a diverse group of students each semester.

To apply, students may submit a resume and a brief statement of interest during the online application process. Contact Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer with any questions about this course.

1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic is a 3-credit course divided between a seminar (approximately two credits) and casework (approximately one credit, or 40-60 hours during the semester). The seminar focuses on skills students need for effective client representation, including interviewing, counseling, fact investigation, and intercultural competency. The seminar also includes substantive law, readings, simulations, and case rounds. There may also be an opportunity to have cross-clinic sessions as well as guest lectures throughout the semester.

Clinic students can expect to gain proficiency in the following areas:

• Client interviewing
• Community-based lawyering
• Oral presentations
• Case management
• Intercultural competency
• Facility with relevant immigration law

The Clinic represents clients on applications for DACA, citizenship, asylum, and other humanitarian relief. Our clients include members of the Cornell community, the greater Ithaca and Upstate New York region, and beyond. We partner with Catholic Charities of Tompkins County and other local organizations to augment the services they provide the immigrant community in Ithaca and the surrounding areas.

The Clinic does not work on student visa applications or employment-based immigration matters. Please contact Global Cornell at international@cornell.edu for international student issues, and immigration@cornell.edu for immigration needs for scholars.

As a public-service clinic, part of our mission is to conduct outreach in the community, both at the law school and university and in the larger region of Upstate New York. As part of this commitment, students engage in community advocacy through Know Your Rights and Undocu-Ally presentations on campus and in the community. Students keep abreast of developments in immigration law and create fact-sheet documents and/or presentations for affected communities. Audience members for students’ public-facing work may include impacted immigrants, immigration attorneys, social workers, students, faculty, staff, and members of the general public.

For example, in spring 2020, a pair of students took on the task of distilling a complex new immigration rule on public charge and presenting it to an audience of more than 1,000 webinar participants.

In spring 2021 and 2022, clinic students presented to Cornell students about options for travel permission (advance parole) for DACA recipients.

Some casework may take place offsite, including at local nonprofits on farms through collaboration with the Cornell Farmworkers Program, in detention centers, or in immigration court. Students may have the opportunity to travel for service projects, including to a detention center, as part of their clinical work. We hope to continue to take service trips, pending COVID-19 related travel issues.

You can read about our January 2019 service trip to Dilley, Texas, here:

• Cornell Law Students Go To Border To Help Mothers, Children Seeking Asylum
• “I’ll Never Forget”: Cornell Law Students on Border, Heading to Tijuana
• At the Border, Cornell Law Students and Professor Help Detained Mothers and Children Seek Asylum
• Cornell Law Students Saw Signs Of Trauma Among Children At US-Mexico Border
• Student vlog about the trip