NEW YORK, March 06, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Immigrant Justice Corps (“IJC”), the country’s first fellowship program wholly dedicated to meeting immigrants’ need for high-quality legal assistance, announced today its 2018 fellowship class, a select group of talented and promising new lawyers who will represent immigrants fighting deportation and seeking lawful status and citizenship. Twenty-five graduates from top law schools from around the country were chosen from a select pool of law graduates for the prestigious fellowship at IJC, which was conceived of by Robert A. Katzmann, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and incubated by The Robin Hood Foundation in 2013.
"With their high-quality representation, this extraordinary group of fellows will work to ensure the fair and effective administration of justice for all concerned – for immigrants and their families, for courts and litigants,” said Judge Katzmann. “Because of Immigrant Justice Corps, lack of resources will no longer impede access to justice for thousands of immigrants. Because of Immigrant Justice Corps’ fellows, immigrants with worthy claims will have a far greater opportunity to live the American dream.”
The new class of fellows brings a wealth of immigration experience. As befits a national program, they are graduates of the leading law schools with exceptional immigration law programs, including: Yale, NYU, Columbia, UC Berkeley, Boston University, Fordham, American University, Case Western, University of Florida, Cardozo, St. Johns, Pace, CUNY, Quinnipiac, Northeastern, Loyola, Chapman, and William & Mary. All the new Justice Fellows are bilingual – 80% of the class speak Spanish. In addition, members of the new class speak Arabic, Cantonese, French, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Mandarin, and Urdu. Almost half of the class speak more than three languages.
The fellows will serve for two years in and around New York City - including the lower Hudson Valley, upstate New York, Long Island, and northern New Jersey - as well as in New Haven, Connecticut, San Antonio, Texas, Miami, Florida and Baltimore, Maryland. They will be placed at top legal services agencies, where they will join the 2017 class of 26 Justice Fellows already in the field.
"The exceptional quality of our 2018 class affirms one of the core tenets of the IJC, that there exists an enormous wealth of talent ready, willing and able to devote effort to address our country’s immigration representation crisis. We are extremely excited to welcome these dynamic Fellows who are focused on making a difference and committed to maximizing high quality representation for immigrants,” said Jojo Annobil, Executive Director of IJC.
Immigrant Justice Corps also employs Community Fellows, college graduates who provide outreach and screening in underserved immigrant communities and assist with preparing benefit applications for immigrants. Applications for the next class of Community Fellows are being accepted now at justicecorps.org/careers.
The full list of 2018 Justice Fellows is as follows:
| Fellow | Law School | 2018 IJC Fellowship Host Organization |
| Javeria Ahmed | Cardozo Law School | Sauti Yetu |
| Nicole Alanko | William & Mary Law School | Safe Horizon |
| Alejandra Aramayo | American University Washington College of Law | Catholic Charities Community Services |
| Emerson Arguenta | Fordham University School of Law | Immigrant Justice Corps Adults with Children Project |
| Jasmine Brito | University of Florida Levin College of Law | Catholic Legal Services Miami |
| Victor Cheng | City University of New York School of Law | Lutheran Social Services of New York |
| John DeBellis | Columbia Law School | Brooklyn Defender Services |
| Emily Echeverria | Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law | Immigrant Justice Corps/Central American Refugee Center Central American Protection Project |
| Taqwa Elhindi | UC Berkeley School of Law | Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition |
| Lorena Espino-Piepp | Benjamin N. Cardozo School Law | Lutheran Social Services of New York |
| Denise Feliciano | St. John's University School of Law | Safe Passage Project |
| Dalia Fuleihan | Boston University School of Law | New Haven Legal Assistance Association |
| Ilana Herr | NYU School of Law | American Friends Service Committee |
| Anjelica Mantikas | St. John's University School of Law | Make the Road New Jersey |
| Jose Miranda | Columbia Law School | Catholic Migration Services |
| Emily Niemel | Case Western Reserve University School of Law | Kids In Need of Defense |
| Erika Nyborg-Burch | Yale Law School | Bronx Defenders |
| Brizeyda Parada Umana | Pace Law School | Catholic Legal Services Miami |
| Denia Perez | Quinnipiac School of Law | Make the Road New York |
| Diana Ricaurte | St. John's University School of Law | IJC/Central American Refugee Center Central American Protection Project |
| Kate Richardson | Loyola New Orleans College of Law | Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services |
| Allison Richman | Fordham University School of Law | The Door |
| Mary Slattery | Northeastern University School of Law | Prisoners Legal Services |
| Marie Sutton | Chapman University Fowler School of Law | Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition |
| Elizabeth Wu | Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law | New York Legal Assistance Group |
The Fellows will begin their intensive training course on September 4, 2018 and be deployed to agencies around the region at the end of that month. For more information, including the class of 2018 Justice Fellow’s bios please visit justicecorps.org/classof2018JF
About Immigrant Justice Corps
Launched in 2014, Immigrant Justice Corps is the country’s first fellowship program dedicated to meeting the unprecedented need for high-quality legal assistance for immigrants. Since then, IJC has served 38,659 immigrants and their families, and the fellows have had a success rate of 93% in their cases – nearly seven times the success rate of those without lawyers. In a little over three years, IJC has trained 140 Justice Fellows (lawyers) and Community Fellows (college graduates) to provide exceptional legal services to low-income immigrants who cannot afford lawyers. 50 Justice Fellows have graduated from the fellowship program – 96% of whom continue practicing in the immigration field after completing the IJC Justice Fellowship. The Immigrant Justice Corps has been featured in major news outlets including two New York Times editorials calling IJC a “groundbreaking effort.” For more information about the work of our Fellows you can view our video “Home of the Brave”.
IJC’s dedicated funders include: the Robin Hood Foundation, Bernard & Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation, Carroll Petrie Foundation, Community Foundation of New Jersey, The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, The Durst Family Foundation, Federal Bar Foundation, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy LLP, The Fred and Donna Nives Foundation, Grove Living Trust, JPB Foundation, Leon Levy Foundation, Malka Fund, The New York Community Trust, Robie & Scott Spector Charitable Fund, and the Zegar Family Foundation.
Immigrant Justice Corps’ Board of Directors – William Zabel (chair), founding partner of Schulte, Roth & Zabel; Judge Robert Katzmann, Robert Morgenthau, former District Attorney of New York County, Professor Alina Das of NYU School of Law, former immigration judge Sarah Burr, Steve Kuhn, Co-Founder and President of the Ask Foundation, Stephanie Khurana, Managing Director of Draper Richards Kaplan, and Robie Spector, Director of Spector Charitable Fund.
Contact
Jojo Annobil
Executive Director
Immigrant Justice Corps
646-690-0481
jannobil@justicecorps.org
www.justicecorps.org
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/272f0ba2-00e6-4b8e-b196-2b91c490d381