In the lead-up to and aftermath of DHS announcing new immigration protections for worker witnesses and amidst a rising tide of labor organizing across the country, immigrant workers and their organizations have turned to immigration lawyers—and especially law school clinics—as essential support for their campaigns. As law school clinics seek to respond to these requests, faculty and students are building a variety of rapid-response models to meet the movement moment, ranging from organizing-oriented individual representation to mass pro se legal clinics and everything in between. Along the way, legal teams must confront key values and ethics questions in movement lawyering as well as build best practices in this emerging area of legal expertise. These teams were integral to the advocacy push that resulted in the new guidance and are continuing to push for effective implementation that delivers for organizing workers and their organizations.
Presenters will share their varied approaches to key choices in organizing rapid response legal support for preparing deferred action for labor enforcement applications. These approaches will include reflection on the following questions:
• What legal models have worked well to respond to the growing need for legal support?
• How do we effectively involve students in building and implementing these legal models?
• How do we as legal advocates integrate organizing objectives, such as group solidarity and worker leadership, into efforts to provide large-scale legal services?
• How do we structure organizer, volunteer, and legal team information sharing to build trust and facilitate shared goals in representation and advocacy while also minimizing risk from disclosure of sensitive information?
• How do we work in coalition to advocate on individual cases and broader policy issues throughout implementation so that these immigration protections deliver for organizing workers and their organizations?