Detainee Rights Clinic Students Secure New Hearing for Nevada Client

Student attorneys in the University of Minnesota Law School's Detainee Rights Clinic have secured a remand from the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) for a client who had been detained in the state of Nevada.

The client, a 30-year-old man who came to the United States from Mexico at the age of 15 to find work, was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from the Department of Homeland Security following a misdemeanor criminal conviction. Unable to afford a lawyer, he represented himself at his subsequent immigration hearing, at which the judge summarily ordered him deported. At this point, the Detainee Rights Clinic, having received the case on referral from the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., began working on the client's behalf.

Three students—Shelby Deckert (’16), Jill Jensen (’16), and Maya Tao (’15), the clinic's student director—worked with teaching fellow and supervising attorney Meghan Heesch to draft a brief to the BIA arguing that the client should be allowed to present evidence and apply for immigration relief. The BIA found that the judge had erred in not considering the client's application for relief and remanded the case back to immigration court for proper review.

"As this case exemplifies," said Heesch, "law students in the Detainee Rights Clinic have a tangible and immediate impact on their detained, indigent noncitizen clients who would otherwise be forced to navigate the complex immigration removal system without the aid of counsel."

The Detainee Rights Clinic is working to find the client a Nevada-based pro bono attorney to provide representation at the new hearing.