Professor Rachel López discussed immigrants’ rights at a workshop for medical residents at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital on Sept. 10.

Immigrants who are sick or struggle with medical conditions have sometimes been deported without due process, López said, explaining that the training enabled medical residents and physicians to understand their patients’ legal rights.  

The director of the Community Lawyering Clinic, López is the co-author of “Discharge, Deportation, and Dangerous Journeys: A Study on the Practice of Medical Repatriation,” published in 2012, which explored the medical repatriation of sick and critically injured immigrants by U.S. hospitals.  She has also worked on a wide range of cases involving immigration, human rights, civil rights and more.