Hanne Sandison JD ‘16
“[M]y experience in the Crimmigration Clinic showed me how imperative it is to have capable and passionate people working at all levels and doing all types of legal work. Policy work, impact litigation, advising, and direct client services all work in harmony to create a more just and equitable system for those most vulnerable to abuse and neglect. I am excited to continue to be a part of this talented and inspiring community of lawyers, and I feel honored to have learned from and with them.”
Lily Axelrod JD ’15
“HLS is a leader in clinical education and teaching immigration-related courses . . . [and] crimmigration is a really important subset of immigration law that affects millions of people a year, so we at Harvard are really lucky to have an expert on that.”
Emma Scott JD ‘16
“[Crimmigration is] a really complicated area of law–combining state, federal, and administrative–so the day to day work is intellectually interesting. It’s also an exciting area because it’s still evolving–you can probably find something in the news related to crimmigration every day.”
Clarissa Lehne JD ‘18
“In the Crimmigration Clinic, I learned a lot about the group effort often behind court filings and felt very fortunate to be partnered with another student off whom I could bounce ideas. Finally, this opportunity also gave me a new perspective on strategic litigation: I’d superficially thought about it as quite a linear effort, when in fact it’s often more a matter of chipping away at a particular issue with repeated runs at the same wall (or judicial body).”
Mike Ewart JD ‘18
“So much of law school is theoretical, the opportunity to apply the knowledge we learned in Phil’s Crimmigration class to an actual case was invaluable—and easier said than done. For me, the [Crimmigration Clinic’s work] underscores the importance of access to counsel in the immigration context (where there is no equivalent to the public defender system). In our case, the client had a winning argument, but it was one that would have been extremely difficult to make without legal training and the resources we had at our disposal.”
Samuel Weiss JD ‘14
“While the idea of focusing immigration enforcement on folks with criminal convictions has intuitive appeal, in the Crimmigration Clinic we got to see how often good people faced devastating consequences for trivial crimes. The statutes most relevant to crimmigration are extremely punitive, especially to people with drug convictions, and often suck discretion out of the system so that immigration judges are left to rubber stamp removal orders. The poor drafting of these statutes makes them confusing but also means that there is room for advocates to be creative in trying to win their clients’ relief. The fact that immigrants facing deportation have no right to counsel creates a huge opportunity for students to help folks navigate an incredibly complex and punitive system. As an experienced practitioner in exactly these types of cases, Phil Torrey was able to closely mentor us as we tried to help folks find some avenue for relief.”
Hanne Sandison JD '16
“Working in the Crimmigration Clinic this semester has been a unique and fascinating capstone to my law school career. Crimmigration (the intersection of criminal law and immigration law) is a relatively new and constantly evolving legal discipline. The law is always changing, and advocates are constantly trying to find creative solutions to new problems. In the Crimmigration Clinic we have the unique opportunity to interact with both criminal defense and immigration legal spheres, as criminal laws affect clients in immigration proceedings, and a client’s immigration status affects their priorities in criminal court.”