Davis Law Students Help Detainees Navigate Immigration System

Holly Cooper '98, Immigration Clinic staff attorney, and clinic students were featured in an article in the Daily Journal for their work in helping a Nigerian woman in the Yuba County jail navigate the immigration system. Cooper helps oversee about a dozen law students in the school's Detention Project that provides free legal counsel during weekly jail visits to low-income immigrants being detained by the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the jail in Marysville. The project was established in 2002, as a joint effort of the Immigration Clinic at the UC Davis School of Law, the federal defender's office in Sacramento, and pro bono immigration attorneys in Sacramento and San Francisco. The project has already won stays of removal for two women, and lawyers are petitioning the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for review of their cases.

In the article, Cooper is quoted. "Because we are a law school, we want to take cases that are multidimensional and have academic training value," said Cooper. "But we try to provide everybody with some assistance, either through direct representation or pro se assistance." According to Cooper, most of the detainees are "in status," meaning they entered the country legally, but are now in removal proceedings because of an act or crime they are accused of committing. Many are refugees seeking political asylum, lawful permanent residence or have married U.S. citizens and are awaiting revised immigration documents.

October 30, 2006/Daily Journal (reg. required)