Academics Experiential Learning Clinical Program

1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic

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The 1L Immigration Law and 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.

About the Clinic

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 and 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.

After their first year, upper-class law students may have the opportunity to continue their work as an advanced student in Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic II, or they may apply to other clinical programs at the law school.

As a public-service clinic, part of our mission is to conduct outreach in the community — on campus, locally, and at the state and national levels as needed.

As part of this commitment, students engage in community advocacy through Know Your Rights and Immigrant Allyship 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.

Audiences for students’ public-facing work may include impacted immigrants; immigration attorneys; lawmakers; Cornell students, faculty and staff; and members of the general public. Each semester provides distinct opportunities for such advocacy projects and outreach.

Past Advocacy Projects
- Travel to detention centers in Louisiana to deliver legal orientation presentations to detained immigrants in collaboration with the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center
- 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 training for campus departments such as the Cornell University Police Department, Cornell Health, Residential Life, and Career Services
- Presentations on the state of immigration law for local community groups such as the Ithaca Sanctuary Alliance
- Know Your Rights presentations for Cornell students and Ithaca community members
- Creation of pro-se materials for Black asylum seekers in collaboration with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration
- The clinic is currently engaged in a multi-phase collaborative project with the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center to provide legal orientation programming and limited-scope legal services to immigrants detained in Louisiana. Our first trip was in 2023. This detention representation project builds on our travel to Dilley, Texas, in January 2019, volunteering at the country’s largest family detention facility, assisting asylum-seekers with their legal cases in partnership with Proyecto Dilley.
- The clinic counsels undocumented and “DACA-mented” Cornell students, often providing representation and/or application assistance for clients applying for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and Advance Parole.
- The clinic takes on various cases and projects for the upstate New York immigrant community, often with local immigration providers such as Journey’s End Legal Services, Catholic Charities of Tompkins/Tioga Counties, and the New York Immigration Coalition.
- The clinic partners with in-house clinics at Cornell on legal cases, including the Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic, the Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic, the Afghanistan Assistance Clinic, and the Gender Justice Clinic.
- Often, advanced clinic students work together with 1L students to provide representation across law student experience levels and across clinical areas of expertise.
The clinic does not work on issues for international students or scholars such as 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.

"Having the opportunity to work with clients and present to community members about immigration policy changes transformed my first year ... and prepared me for the summer job search in a way no other first-year experience could have." ~Camilah Hamideh '22

First-year law students are eligible to apply for the 1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic as an elective during their spring semester. 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 apply to enroll in the course during the 1L elective registration process, which usually occurs in November. 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 must submit a resume and a brief statement of interest during the online application process. In your personal statement, consider answering one or more of the following questions:
- Why do you want to take the clinic, particularly in your first year?
- How have your personal and/or professional experiences prepared you for the clinic?
- What are your career goals?
Please also note your first-year section and any non-English language you speak, with level of language proficiency.

More information regarding timing and method of submission is available close to registration in the fall.

In deciding whether to enroll in the course, students should note that, like all first-year electives, the clinic is graded on a curve.

Contact the faculty with any questions about this course.
1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic is a three-credit course divided between a seminar (approximately two credits) and casework (approximately one credit, or 40-60 hours during the semester).

Advanced students in their 2L and/or 3L years may enroll in Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic II or III with permission of the instructor, usually for 1-3 credits depending on the casework or projects they take on.
Clinic students can expect to gain proficiency in the following areas:
- Client interviewing
- Community-based lawyering
- Oral presentations
- Case management
- Intercultural competency
- Legal reasoning and issue spotting
- Legal writing in various genres
- Facility with relevant immigration law.
Casework and advocacy projects provide opportunity for students to develop these skills. Further, the seminar covers relevant substantive law tailored to the semester’s casework and offers regular discussion of current events in immigration. Students will participate in simulations and case rounds. There may also be cross-clinic sessions and guest lectures throughout the semester.
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. Travel is not required or guaranteed, however.

Past Trips

Louisiana: 2023

In 2023, the clinic started a project with the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative (SIFI) of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Clinic students traveled to several Louisiana detention centers in April.

The initial trip was part of a longer-term collaboration with SIFI involving follow-up trips and ongoing legal work for detained clients. This work is supported by funding from a Just Futures Team Research Grant from Mellon Foundation Just Futures Initiative and Global Cornell.

Learn more about the trip:
Dilley, Texas: 2019

September 2023 to Louisiana

Student Feedback

“This course was the most amazing experience I’ve had at Cornell Law School. I’m not sure I will ever have an experience as formative as this one again, but I am eternally grateful for the effort both faculty put into guiding us through this clinic and giving us the opportunities to engage with real legal substance by doing genuine work. This clinic reminded me of the reasons why I elected to attend law school in the first place — namely, the fact that I wanted to utilize my resources and my opportunities to fight for those who’ve gone unheard and undefended for far too long. This clinic was a bright spot in my first year — one that has likely altered the trajectory of my legal career in a radical way.”

~Nathaniel Squires ’25

“I am incredibly grateful for my experience in the clinic. I’ve learned so many new skills and perspectives that have forever changed my understanding of what it means to be a good advocate.”

~Lucy Oh ’25

“I am so unbelievably grateful to have been a part of the 1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic. Clinical work is an incredibly rewarding and fundamental aspect of American legal education, but it is rare for first-year students to have the opportunity to engage with clients in a tangible way due to the demanding nature of the first year of law school. Professor Kelley-Widmer always took first-year demands and expectations into consideration and did an excellent job assigning a manageable amount of work without sacrificing rigor. Having the opportunity to work with clients and present to community members about immigration policy changes transformed my first year, made me into a better student, and prepared me for the summer job search in a way no other first-year experience could have. I would highly encourage all first-year students to apply!

~Camilah Hamideh ’22

“Working in the clinic was an invaluable opportunity to have so early in my legal career. Having hands on experience with clients on a variety of immigration related issues and the hurdles they face helped me solidify the type of legal work I wanted to do. The experiences I gained transcended immigration law and gave me insight into effective advocacy, client relations, and the political influences on the law in a broader sense.”

~Siunik Moradian ’22

“Working on the ground in Dilley, Texas, gave me invaluable experience beyond the classroom setting. It made me a better advocate and taught me an incredible amount about the intricacies of asylum law.”

~Emily Szopinski ’20

“Representing DACA students and delivering Know Your Rights presentations on the greater Cornell campus through the clinic was the most rewarding experience of my law school career. It was an honor to do important, hands-on work in a time where immigration lawyers were (and continue to be) needed more than ever. The clinic’s focus on providing students the full opportunity and support to take up immigration and community-based lawyering projects gave me the tools to make administrative advocacy and litigation a meaningful part of my practice after graduation.”

~Amanda Wong ’19

“Working with asylum seekers was the most rewarding experience I have had in law school. Because asylum seekers don’t have a right to a lawyer at government expense, I know that the work we did was an incredibly important part of the process to help asylum seekers find safety in the U.S. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity while still in school to put my law degree to good use.”

~Hillary Rich ’19

Clinic students and faculty spent a week in and around Alexandria, Louisiana, in spring 2023. They provided legal orientation presentations and consultations for detained immigrants in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Aaliyah Channer ’25 and Oscar Ruiz ’25 delivered a presentation on immigration law to a local community group with Professor Kelley-Widmer.
Katie Rahmlow ’23, Don Izekor ’23, and Amy Godshall ’23 accompanied clients to asylum interviews in Buffalo, New York, in April 2023.
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.
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.
Clinic students and Professor Kelley-Widmer with a client and her daughter outside the Buffalo Immigration Court in October 2021.
Clinic client and Cornell grad student with the naturalization certificate he obtained through help from the Clinic, February 2022.
Professor Kelley-Widmer and 1L Clinic Students in the Law School Courtyard, May 2021.
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.
Victoria Inojosa ’19, Linda Lin ’21, and Diana Caraveo Parra ’20 in downtown Dilley, Texas, in January 2019.
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.