“Immigrants” is a track by K’naan.  It is part of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s collection the Hamilton Mixtape, and features  guest rappers Residente, Riz MC, and Snow Tha Product.  “All four rappers have immigrant backgrounds, emphasizing the message of the track and its recurring sample from Hamilton’s Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down).

Click here to listen to “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)”
(from “The Hamilton Mixtape”)

#RebelliousLawyering

IMMIGRANT LEGAL RESOURCE CENTER
JOB ANNOUNCEMENT

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) is seeking an attorney for a one-year legal fellowship with our San Francisco office.  The fellow would work to further our technical support and capacity building work on behalf of immigrants and the practitioners who defend their rights.  The ILRC is a national nonprofit legal support center located in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1979, we specialize in immigration law, policy, and immigrants’ rights.  The ILRC’s work concentrates on three main program areas: (1) building the capacity of attorneys, paralegals, organizers, service providers, immigrants, and others by providing legal technical assistance, trainings, and publications; (2) assisting immigrants with civic engagement projects to help expand immigrants’ rights and political power; and (3) conducting policy and advocacy work related to immigration law and immigrant rights.

The ILRC is a team-based organization that makes most of its decisions in a collaborative fashion that allows for significant staff input.

Job Responsibilities: The legal fellow will be responsible for contributing to several concurrent programs including:

• Providing case-specific technical assistance to public defenders, private practice attorneys, nonprofit agency staff, and pro bono attorneys who work with low-income immigrants on issues relating to family-based immigration, removal and deportation defense, VAWA, asylum, and other areas of immigration law;
• Writing manuals, practice advisories, and outreach and educational materials for attorneys, paralegals, community organizers, members of the immigrant community, and others;
• Conducting in-person and/or webinar trainings on immigration law and practice for legal workers and other practitioners who serve the immigrant community;
• Conducting research and writing assignments for ILRC’s staff attorneys on a variety of immigration law issues;
• Working with networks of other immigrant rights organizations and/or organizing with and presenting to groups on immigration law, policy and immigrant rights issues;
• Engaging in policy and advocacy work on immigration law issues;
• Traveling for trainings, meetings, and other events in California and throughout the United States; and
• Helping immigrants lead and participate in civic engagement projects.

Qualifications: The successful applicant is required to have:

• Excellent writing, editing, legal research and analysis, and oral presentation skills;
• Exceptional time management skills and the ability to meet deadlines;
• A strong work ethic, including the following qualities: organized, flexible, reliable, and dependable, with the ability to be an independent worker and to handle several projects simultaneously while thriving in a team-based collaborative decision-making environment;
• A strong commitment to immigration law and immigrant rights;
• A willingness to travel throughout California and the United States; and
• A current Bar membership in good standing for any state in the United States or the District of Columbia.

It is a plus if the applicant has additional experience including:

• Experience representing clients in the practice of general immigration law before the EOIR, BIA, and/or and the federal courts, especially complicated family-based and removal cases;
• Broad knowledge of family-based immigration law and removal defense including the grounds of inadmissibility and deportability; the intersection of criminal and immigration law; and the rules governing BIA and judicial review;
• Writing and securing grants from foundations and corporations;
• Technical writing whether for immigration or other purposes;
• Training, teaching, or other public speaking experience;
• Working in, leading, or forming coalitions;
• Collaborating with immigrant communities;
• Coordinating civic engagement projects or working as a community organizer; and
• Second language proficiency, preferably Spanish, Mandarin or Cantonese, within the range of conversational to fluent.

Salary/Benefits: Pay is commensurate with experience. The ILRC provides competitive salaries, excellent benefits including professional membership dues, health/dental/vision insurance, a flexible spending account for medical and dependent care, vacation, and sick leave. The ILRC sponsors a retirement plan option upon fulfillment of eligibility.

Applications: This position will remain open until it is filled.  We will consider applications on an ongoing basis beginning immediately.  To ensure consideration of your application, please submit a cover letter explaining your qualifications for the position and salary requirement, a resume, two writing samples – one sample that demonstrates immigration law knowledge and a second sample that shows business writing acumen — and the names of three references as soon as possible to:

Staff Attorney Hiring Committee
ILRC
1663 Mission Street, Suite 602
San Francisco, CA  94103
Fax: (415)255-9792 (no calls, please)
Job_attorney@ilrc.org

The ILRC is an equal opportunity employer and encourages women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals to apply.

https://www.ilrc.org/job-announcement-legal-fellowship 

#RebelliousLawyering

Time for a poem.

“Soon it will be over,

which is precisely what the child in my dream said,

holding my hand, pointing at the roiling sea and the sky

hurtling our way like so many buffalo,

who said it’s much worse than we think,

and sooner; to whom I said

no duh child in my dreams, what do you think

this singing and shuddering is,

what this screaming and reaching and dancing

and crying is, other than loving

what every second goes away?

Goodbye, I mean to say.

And thank you. Every day.”

#RebelliousLawyering

“How to Best Prepare.  If you or a loved one are not a U.S. citizen (even if you are a legal permanent resident), take the time now to create a preparedness plan for your family in case one of you is detained and/or deported. This plan should include ensuring important government and health documents are accessible by another family member, emergency contacts are shared with those you trust, and instructions for care and an affidavit designating a care giver for any children you have are documented. Always have on hand the contact information of a legal service provider in case of emergency.”

“In case of contact with immigration authorities, do not answer any questions or provide personal information. If immigration authorities come to your home, keep your door closed and do not open it at all unless the authorities can show you a warrant with your name on it that is signed by a judge. They almost never have a warrant like that. If you are detained, do not sign anything you don’t understand. Ask to speak with a lawyer and for a hearing before an immigration judge. Be sure to keep materials explaining your rights, like ILRC’s red cards, easily accessible to read aloud or to pass to immigration authorities or police if immigration authorities were to attempt to enter your home or approach you on the street.”

Download ILRC’s Special Considerations for LGBTQ Immigrants here.

lgbt_immigrants