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The opportunity to engage in direct-service legal work for clients is a unique component of Cornell’s first-year curriculum. The 1L Immigration Law & Advocacy clinic is designed to provide first-year law students with the experience of counseling clients on immigration cases, performing research and writing for real cases, and engaging in community advocacy on emerging immigration issues. Immigration law is always changing and has a tremendous impact on the community, making legal work in this area challenging, relevant, and versatile. First-year students in the clinic will develop skills in legal analysis, client-centered lawyering, public speaking, and more.
Clinic students and Professor Kelley-Widmer with a client and her daughter outside the Buffalo Immigration Court in October 2021.
Professor Kelley-Widmer and 1L Clinic Students in the Law School Courtyard, May 2021.
Clinic client and Cornell grad student with the naturalization certificate he obtained through help from the Clinic, February 2022.
Clinic client in the Galapagos Islands after the Clinic won her advance parole (travel permission), August 2021.
From left: Professor Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer and copresenter Amadou Fofana give an Undocu-Ally training to Cornell staff in February 2020.
Linda Lin ’21 and Hillary Rich ’19 work on an asylum brief for an immigrant mother detained in Dilley, Texas, in January 2019.
Clinic students conducted outreach on farms in Central New York, May 2019.
Students in the spring 2023 clinic spend class time discussing strategy for their clients, a group of siblings seeking asylum. Students draw on the classic rhetorical techniques of ethos, logos, and pathos to develop persuasive case theories.
Victoria Inojosa ’19, Linda Lin ’21, and Diana Caraveo Parra ’20 in downtown Dilley, Texas, in January 2019.
Clinic student George Palau (’24) presents on Know Your Rights to the students of Open Doors English, an Ithaca language instruction school, in spring 2022.
A clinic client visited her hometown and extended family in fall 2022 thanks to the travel permission the clinic helped her apply for.