Asylum Clinic

About This Program

In a clinic, students represent actual people and work on actual cases. They advocate in court, counsel clients, conduct fact investigations and mediate disputes. Students not only must think like a lawyer, as they are asked to do in most law school classes, but also act like a lawyer. Students will be both fighting – often in Federal District Court through petitions for writs of mandamus or habeas corpus – to preserve clients right to a hearing or possibly to get them out of detention – and representing clients on their asylum applications either in front of the Immigration Court or the USCIS Asylum Office. Students may also represent clients on appeals from asylum hearings to the Board of Immigration Appeals or the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.