The more than 10 million undocumented residents living in the United States have no constitutional right to legal representation. Without a lawyer, they are more likely to forgo legal help in dire situations and face poor outcomes as a result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To help fill that representation gap, third-year students at the University of Nebraska College of Law\u2019s Immigration Clinic provide free legal services to those in need. The clinic more than tripled the number of students working on cases in 2019, meeting a growing demand for deportation and asylum assistance across Nebraska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty tumultuous time for immigration and immigration policy, and that leaves a lot of clients with a lot of questions and fears,\u201d said Sam Hawley, a Nebraska Law alumnus from Eldridge, Iowa. \u201cTo be able to be that person who can go and help address those fears and problems is a really valuable experience and what drew me specifically to the Immigration Clinic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a valuable chance for students to actually work with clients and real cases,\u201d<\/p>Kevin Ruser<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The law college takes on around 40 pro bono cases at a time. Kevin Ruser, who founded the clinic 21 years ago, compares the experience to students having a \u201clearner\u2019s permit\u201d for practicing law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a valuable chance for students to actually work with clients and real cases,\u201d Ruser said. \u201cI think they get enjoyment out of finally applying the theory they\u2019ve learned up until this point in their law school career.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The clinic\u2019s services are in especially high demand due to Nebraska\u2019s large refugee population. Over the years, refugees from Vietnam, Tajikistan, Bosnia and Iraq have visited frequently with citizenship questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe keep a map and stick pins in every country that a client has come from that we\u2019ve worked with, and it\u2019s covered with pins. It just astounds me,\u201d Ruser said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nebraska\u2019s legal outreach efforts have received national recognition by the American Bar Association, which named it a Pro Bono Leader in both 2018 and 2019. The college also continues to excel in job placement for alumni, with 94% of its 2018 graduates employed within 10 months of graduation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The more than 10 million undocumented residents living in the United States have no constitutional right to legal representation. Without a lawyer, they are more likely to forgo legal help in dire situations and face poor outcomes as a result. To help fill that representation gap, third-year students at the University of Nebraska College of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6,26,25,24,162],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-education-and-outreach","tag-immigration-clinic","tag-kevin-ruser","tag-nebraska-college-of-law","tag-student-experiences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}