Vanderbilt law professor Karla McKanders has spent her professional life focused on researching and practicing immigrant and refugee law and she directs the Immigration Practice Clinic at Vanderbilt Law School where students do pro bono work with refugees.
- McKanders is running a pro-bono clinic June 28-29 for the immigrants arrested in the raid at a meat processing plant in Morristown, TN.
McKanders can explain:
- WHY so many families risk coming to the U.S. (especially from Honduras) WATCH her explain here.
- The legal process families/children go through once they cross the border.
- What pro bono immigration lawyers do for refugees (an asylum claim is 400 pages long)
- Give personal experience of working with refugees
- McKanders and her students wrote amicus briefs for Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the federal immigration travel ban litigation.
“The students’ amicus brief provides attorneys and advocates the existing case law with the Board of Immigration Appeals, every Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court that harms inflicted by private actors can constitute persecution when the state is unwilling or unable to protect the applicant. The brief also confirms that it is well established that such harms can constitute persecution with respect to every protected ground under the Immigration and Nationality Act § 101(a)(42). It is our hope that advocates and attorneys can utilize the amicus brief as a starting point in advocating for their clients who may be impacted by the Attorney General’s decision.”
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