Immigration Law and Policy Clinic 2025 Highlights
ILPC 2025: Professor Elizabeth Jordan, Makena Lambert, Patty Knief, Caleb Zwanzig, Shannon Long, Alexia Torres Ayala, Rachel Ware, Candace Garza, Baylie Williams, and Lasch Clinical Teaching Fellow Jack Hathaway at the swearing in ceremony in August.
The focus for the Immigration Law & Policy Clinic (ILPC) at the Sturm College of Law this year is federal litigation. As the Trump administration ramps up immigration enforcement tactics and limits noncitizens’ opportunities for relief and release from detention in immigration courts, immigration practitioners are increasingly turning to the federal courts to vindicate the rights of their noncitizen clients. ILPC student attorneys have embraced joining in those efforts.
This year’s ILPC seminar focuses on learning about the immigration detention system, the law of detention, the harms detention visits on noncitizens subjected to it, and federal court practice and trial skills. Since the beginning of the semester in August, ILPC students have filed three petitions for habeas corpus, and amended a fourth, challenging their clients’ illegal detention in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Winning the habeas petition results in a bond hearing in immigration court or release from immigration custody. The ILPC represents them in those immigration court proceedings as well. In addition, there is a pending request for judicial review of a removal order at the Tenth Circuit, which is an exciting opportunity to litigate at the highest levels of the federal system in an attempt to ensure the client is allowed to stay in the United States where he can be safe from harm.
Policy projects this year build upon this theme – the clinic is tracking shifts in the law at the immigration courts, at the federal courts, and in detention practices by the local ICE office in collaboration with community partners. It is a busy time for the ILPC and the clinic is lucky to have a committed and energetic cohort of student attorneys ready to take on robust representation of noncitizen clients.
The ILPC welcomes Lasch Clinical Teaching Fellow John “Jack” Hathaway this year, an experienced immigration practitioner quickly learning the ropes of teaching and supervising students and expanding the clinic’s ability to litigate zealously.
