I’m working with Kids in Need of Defense, an organization which pairs unaccompanied minors who have immigration cases with pro-bono attorneys. There’s a bit of research, but I mostly handle referrals, do the initial screenings, and set up the intake interviews. It’s pretty sweet. Two weeks ago, I started doing the intake interviews myself, but I’m still always worried that I will either fail to get all of the relevant information from the kids or that I will end up making the kids cry by questioning too insensitively.

Immigration law, at least with respect to kids, is both interesting and depressing. On the one hand, many of these children have amazing stories, which they tell very vividly. On the other hand, the only kids that get to stay are the ones who have a legal reason to stay, obviously. The legal reason is usually that they qualify for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status because they have been abused, abandoned, or neglected, or that they qualify for asylum because they fear returning to their home country.

So the kids who tend to win their cases are the ones who most need the win, which is nice. But many of the smart, hard-working young people, whom the United States would be lucky to have, simply have no legal reason to be here, so everyone loses. This issue was in the news recently in the story of a Harvard student who happens to be here illegally.

Even though immigration is a mixed bag, I’m pretty sure I prefer the (quasi) real world to law school. I can see exactly how and why what I’m doing matters. I have time to think, which I really value. I like my boss, the attorney who supervises the branch, which adds a lot.

Incidentally, last week I went to a lecture on a specific immigration issue, and I learned that immigration litigators are sharing their notes and experiences on how some creative arguments and strategies are being received around the country over a secret, password-protected wiki.

-- AjKhandaker - 10 Jul 2010