The Kline School of Law Federal Litigation and Appeals Clinic, directed by Emma Tuohy, offers students the unique opportunity to represent indigent individuals in immigration matters, at both the trial and appellate level. Students will provide a broad range of services for their clients. In past years, clinic students have represented clients in asylum, cancellation of removal, and motion to suppress hearings before the Immigration Court and in appeals before the Board of Immigration Appeals and various United States Circuit Courts of Appeals. Students have also represented clients in applying for affirmative relief before USCIS such as applications for asylum, T-visas for victims of human trafficking, and U-visas for victims of crime.

Students take on substantial responsibilities in their work, which include conducting live hearings, arguing cases to courts of appeal, conducting direct testimony and cross-examination, negotiating settlements, counseling clients, communicating with opposing counsel and other tasks that may arise. Students receive guidance and direction from Professor Tuohy while still playing the lead role in their cases.

Representative clinic cases include:

• Winning asylum in Immigration Court for a Guinean woman who had been subjected to female genital mutilation. Read more here.
• Convincing a three-judge federal court of appeals, that a person was wrongly convicted and sentenced to life in prison because the trial court violated his constitutional rights. Read more here.
• Obtaining asylum for a refugee from Central America who was fleeing extreme violence and death threats from her former partner. Read more here.
• Securing the release from detention of a woman who had been separated from her young children for nearly two years. Read more here.
• Persuading a federal judge that a man who had been deported to Mexico was a actually a U.S. citizen who should be allowed to live in the U.S. Read more here.