Hello, Students! Welcome to the Asylum Clinic. I am looking forward to the semester as we navigate the wild world of humanitarian immigration law this fall.
In preparation for our clinic year, please take a few minutes to view my video and learn a little about me. And then explore the rest of this page. There is an assignment posted, so please prepare ahead of our first class on Friday, August 28th. We will begin at 9:30 AM.
I recognize the extra stress that COVID-19 has brought to your lives, and that this is an especially stressful time to be a student. Please see below for our communication plan (how to contact me, etc. )
I'll see you online! You can log onto the course Blackboard site and our Zoom sessions through the NYLS portal.
Video: Get to know me
I'm a Chicagoan and now a New Yorker for the past 12 years. I'm also an alumna of NYLS. I have been teaching immigration law since 2014. Prior to teaching, I was an immigration lawyer at non-profit organizations in NYC. I direct the Asylum Clinic at NYLS, and work with students to help clients seeking asylum or other forms of humanitarian protection in the United States. I am passionate about making immigration law accessible to people and building systemic change.
My research interests include global migration, statelessness, human rights, and empowerment for women and girls facing poverty and gender-based violence.
I was recently awarded a Fulbright Grant (U.S. Scholar) and will be based in Guadalajara, Mexico, beginning in 2021. I will be researching long-term solutions for asylum seekers who hail from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East but become stranded in Mexico due to U.S. immigration restrictions. These “extra-continental asylum-seekers” constitute a growing vulnerable population whose needs are often overlooked.
For more about me, please visit my website.
Students in this course are trained to represent immigrant clients under faculty supervision and argue cases in the New York Immigration Court and before the Newark and New York Asylum Offices on behalf of refugees fleeing persecution in their home countries and seeking safety in the United States. The classroom (seminar) portion of the course will focus on building skills such as interviewing, researching and writing declarations and briefs, fact development, some trial advocacy, as well as working with survivors of torture and trauma, cultural awareness, and engaging with interpreters. Students will learn about the substantive law and procedure of immigration, refugee, and asylum law in the United States and will receive instruction on immigrant access to public benefits. Guest speakers will further strengthen students’ knowledge.
Under faculty supervision, students will interview and counsel clients; conduct fact investigation and discovery; draft pleadings, correspondence, and motions; perform legal research and analysis; collaborate with social work professionals and country conditions experts; engage with interpreters; and appear with clients before the New York Immigration Court and at the Asylum Offices in Lyndhurst, New Jersey or Bethpage, New York. Students will also engage in community outreach through monthly legal immigration screenings at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and other community partners, Know-Your-Rights presentations, and systemic advocacy. Students may also work to develop resources for courts, attorneys, and clients related to immigration law or collateral immigration consequences in other areas. The precise work conducted during the semester will depend on clients who need representation and the posture of these cases.
This semester, our dockets includes clients from Angola, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ghana, and Turkmenistan.
Course Materials:
Required Texts:
C. Grose and M.E. Johnson, Lawyers, Clients & Narrative: A Framework for Law Students and Practitioners, Carolina Academic Press, 2017 (either electronic or hardcopy)
AILA’s Asylum Primer, 8th Edition (2019)
Other assigned readings/materials (posted to course Blackboard site)
In addition, please refer to the Law Student Intern Manual for the Asylum Clinic.
Recommended: Purchase a statutory supplement, or familiarize yourself with reading/reviewing statutes online.
Below is a recommended version of the statutory and regulatory supplement. If you do not purchase a supplement, I recommend that you regularly download and annotate the statutes and regulations cited in the text and that we will discuss closely.
Aleinikoff, Martin, Motomura, Fullerton, Stumpf and Gulasekaram's Immigration and Nationality Laws of the United States: Selected Statutes, Regulations and Forms, 2020. This text is available in electronic or hardcover versions.
For an online version of the Immigration and Nationality Act, visit here
For an online version for 8 Code of Federal Regulations, visit here
Email address: claire.thomas@nyls.edu (I will respond within 24 hours)
Contact Plan (Includes information about office hours)
Twitter: @clairerthomas
Website: clairerthomas.com
This online version of the course schedule is posted for your convenience. For details on the assignments and the rest of the course materials, please visit the our course Blackboard site.
In case of any discrepancies between this site and materials on Blackboard, the Blackboard materials control. Blackboard is the official publication; this site is "unpublished" materials.