Legal Access for Migrants in Transit in Colombia and Mexico: Creating a Transnational Immigrant Justice Clinic

press release:

Migrants who have accurate legal information and counsel fare better in accessing relevant resources, navigating legal systems, and understanding the risks and realities of their options for movement and residence. People who receive legal assistance early in their migration journey are four times more likely to be released from detention, seek immigration relief, and successfully receive it (Eagly & Shafer, 2016). Research also demonstrates that access to accurate legal information facilitates migrants’ mental health and wellbeing (Ardalan, 2015; Kanter et al., 2001; Pilato et al., 2023). Understanding the power of early access to legal information, the Migration in the Americas Project formed in 2023 in conjunction with UW Law School’s Immigrant Justice Clinic to begin to develop a model of a transnational immigration law clinic.

We developed this project with the understanding that human migration is transnational. People often move across the borders of various countries in their migration journey, each with their own immigration laws and processes. Additionally, they often have legal experiences or issues that involve the frameworks of multiple countries. Despite the transnational nature of the migration experience, most legal services for migrants operate as a national construct, focusing on one country’s immigration laws, systems, and programs in counseling someone about their options. Our project works to conceptualize a model for a transnational immigrant law clinic.

We cue in on migration in the Americas with particular attention to the contexts of human mobility in Colombia and Mexico. We provide people with access to trusted information and counsel about US immigration laws and processes so they can make agentic decisions about their best options for movement and residence. Or work includes the following: 1) We offer information and training on U.S. immigration laws and processes to legal clinics, humanitarian groups migrant shelter legal-service providers, and immigrant justice groups in these countries. 2) We consult on transnational immigration cases with connections to US immigration laws and processes. 3) Finally, we provide experiential learning opportunities for US and international immigration law students and service providers so we can expand the capacity of those serving migrant communities in understanding the transnational complexities of human migration.

About the presenters: Erin M. Barbato is the Director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She teaches second and third year law students to represent individuals in removal proceedings and with humanitarian-based immigration relief. The work often involves representing people seeking refuge in the United States. Previously, Erin worked as an immigration attorney at a non-profit organization and in private practice as well.

Prior to attending law school, Erin volunteered as a teacher at El Centro del Muchacho Trabajador, a non-profit organization in Quito, Ecuador. While in Quito, she worked with families and recently resettled refugee families living at or below the poverty line.

The Wisconsin Law Journal recognized Erin in 2010 as an Up and Coming Lawyer for her dedication to representing immigrants and pro bono service. In 2013, she received the Lee and Lynn Copen Family Justice Award from Women and Children’s Horizons for her work with immigrant victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. The Wisconsin Law Journal again recognized Erin’s work with immigrants by awarding her as a Woman in the Law in 2014. She has also been a member of Wisconsin Pro Bono Honor Society since 2013. In 2021, the students at the University of Wisconsin Law School awarded her with the Clinical Teacher of the Year Award.

Currently, she is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, (AILA) the Wisconsin Bar Association, on the Board of Directors of the Community Immigration Law Center (CILC) and DREAMers of Wisconsin. She is also a faculty affiliate with Chican@ & Latin@ Studies at the College of Letters & Science.

Sara L. McKinnon is Professor of Rhetoric, Politics & Culture in the Department of Communication Arts, and Faculty Director of Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies. She is co-chair of the Human Rights Program, with affiliations in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and Chican@ & Latin@ Studies.

Her current research examines foreign policy rhetoric in an era of globalization, considering as case studies collaborations between the United States, Mexico, and Central American countries since the 1980s to address regional issues such as drug trafficking, corruption, and migration. She is also working on a collaborative project to expand the information about US immigration and refugee programs and legal counsel available to migrants throughout Latin America as they consider safe options for movement and resettlement.

McKinnon’s books include Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics (University of Illinois Press, 2016), which charts the incorporation of protections for survivors of gender- and sexuality-based persecution in US refugee and asylum law, and Text + Field: Innovations in Rhetorical Method (Penn State University Press, 2016), which considers a range of approaches for using ethnographic and field-based methods in doing rhetorical research.

She regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in communication and human behavior, migration and refugee studies, gender and communication, intercultural communication, and conflict studies, and qualitative and text-based research methods.