Following the Border: Law School Clinical Programs in the Era of Externalized and Internalized Migration Policies

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: Marriott St. Louis Grand

Room: Landmark 3

Floor: Ground Floor, Conference Plaza

This concurrent session will bring together clinical professors from the U.S. and Mexico to discuss various responses addressing migration at the US-Mexico border and within Mexico. In an effort to stem the flow of migration into the U.S. over the last several years, the Biden Administration and individual states have embraced anti-immigrant policies in direct violation of domestic and international law. Operation Lone Star in Texas, for example, includes emergency designations of several counties, both border and inland, which allows for greater law enforcement and military presence as well as increased criminal penalties for certain crimes. At the same time, the Biden Administration, through programs such as the “Asylum Ban 2.0” and CBP One, has undertaken a process of externalization of U.S. immigration controls to Mexico. Because migratory flows to the U.S. include large numbers of asylum seekers fleeing endemic violence in their home countries, this process of externalization has shifted U.S. refugee protection obligations to Mexico, either because asylum seekers are stranded in Mexico or are stuck on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border. In response to these challenges, law clinics in the U.S. and Mexico are working collaboratively across borders and across disciplines to help meet the needs of refugees traveling to and through the U.S.-Mexican border. We will detail the collaboration efforts and will also discuss the need for more cross-clinic, cross-border and cross-disciplinary collaborations given the trend toward both the externalization of immigration controls outside the U.S. and the internalization within the U.S. of anti-immigrant initiatives toward limiting access to legal protections.