25 top law graduates chosen for selective fellowship to represent immigrants fighting deportation

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.

2018 Justice Fellows

"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 

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