Hi 62 / Lo 49
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Volume 70, Issue 76,
Monday, January 24, 2005
News Grants bolster Law Center program Clinic helps immigrants, refugees survive legal system By Tina Marie Macias
The UH Law Center Immigration Clinic has been awarded two grants totaling more than $62,000 to help indigent refugees and domestically abused immigrants receive citizenship and justice. "Both of them are to help the poor," said associate clinical professor and Immigration Clinic supervisor Joseph Vail. "It's a wonderful program, and luckily we've been able to turn out some real good students and get some real excellent attorneys from the private bar that have been able to come here and work with us through these programs." The grants came from the Texas Equal Access to Justice Foundation, a nonprofit corporation created by the Texas Supreme Court in 1984 to give Texans equal access to justice, regardless of income. The foundation grants millions of dollars each year to provide legal aid to low-income Texans. The TEAJF gave the UH Immigration Clinic the $30,000 Crime Victims Civil Legal Services grant, which Vail said will help victims of crimes get legal representation. Among those victims are immigrant women who have suffered domestic violence. Many have been living in America long enough to have U.S.-born children. "They've been here for several years, but they've been living in abusive relationships," Vail said. "The immigration laws enable them to leave that relationship if they're being abused and still obtain their lawful status here in the country." The women are referred from local shelters, such as the Houston Area Women's Center, and nonprofit organizations like Catholic charities and the YMCA, Vail said. "We interview them (and) we decide whether or not they can qualify to legalize their status," Vail said. "We also try to get them into a safer housing situation, and we also assist them in obtaining lawful employment authorization so they can begin to support themselves." This is the second year the center has received the Crime Victims grant, and Vail said it worked last year with 150 to 175 women to obtain work authorization, lawful immigration status, counseling and referral to shelters. For the fourth consecutive year, the center also received the $32,535 Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts grant from TEAJF as part of a coalition with the Catholic Charities and YMCA International Services. The grant allows an attorney to represent people near or below the poverty level. The center uses the money to represent indigent refugees who have been fleeing persecution in their countries. Vail said many of the refugees come from Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. "We assist them in obtaining asylum here in the United States, and then reunited them with their families," Vail said. The center has UH students work on the cases and represent the immigrants and refugees. Under federal regulations, the students may be attorneys on the cases, Vail said. Students work on all aspects of the cases, from client interviews through court trials or interviews at the Department of Homeland Security. "These students get actual experience in real-life cases. This is not a make-believe situation," Vail said. "These students win or lose these cases, and this person then gets a new life here and freedom from persecution or violence, or they're returned to a country where their life or freedom may be threatened." The students go through the entire process under the supervision of licensed attorneys, whom Vail said the grant money allows the center to hire. Four full- and part-time attorneys help with the cases and supervise the students. "There is just not a lot of good, ethical, competent legal representation out there for poor people, and these students at the University of Houston Law Center handle these cases about as well as even the most experienced lawyers," Vail said. Vail also wants to use the grant money to do more pro bono training, including training private attorneys to take on some of the cases. He also wants to work with the private bar to establish a pro bono attorney program within the court where a student or attorney would be in court on a daily basis to answer questions for immigrants who do not have legal representation. "In the area of immigration, there is no right to
(a) court-appointed attorney. You have to find your own attorney," Vail
said. "The government does not provide individuals with government supported
attorneys as they do in the area of criminal law."
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