Immigrant Rights Clinic protects almost 30 clients from removal in the fall of 2024
Students-attorneys in the clinic mobilized to change the lives of clients facing imminent removal from the U.S.
Carolyn Walworth, JD ’25
Students from Duke Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic spent the fall 2024 semester working to help clients facing removal from the United States. Their efforts changed the lives of almost 30 clients.
The students worked on two types of immigrant cases—preventing deportation proceedings and securing work authorization for workers whose employers are being investigated for labor violations.
Stopping deportation proceedings
Sammy Sawyer ’25 and Carolyn Walworth ’25 leveraged a prosecutorial discretion policy to secure dismissal of deportation proceedings for four immigrants residing in North Carolina.
In addition to counseling their clients, Walworth and Sawyer drafted and assembled the relevant documents, motions, and communications with opposing counsel, ultimately succeeding in the dismissals.
“Simply getting out of those proceedings is often the best-case scenario for certain noncitizens,” said Shane Ellison, the clinic’s supervising attorney.
Inconsistent application of the law can result in vastly divergent outcomes for noncitizens in removal proceedings, Walworth noted. And people seeking relief from the U.S. immigration system often face confusing information due to its bureaucratic and technical complexity, making legal counsel vitally important.
Their successes brought the clinic’s total number of clients who no longer faced deportation proceedings to 20 individuals.
Protecting workers during labor enforcement investigations
Separately, Avery Allen ’26 and Juan Colin ’26 helped 25 workers seek protection from deportation under Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement (DALE). This policy provides work authorization for four years to workers whose employers are being investigated by a state or federal agencies for labor violations.
Temporary protection against deportation and work authorization that is not tied to a specific employer allows their clients to secure work with better wages and conditions and to participate in investigations of their employers without fear of retaliation based on their immigration status, the students said.
“The program is a tool for labor enforcement agencies to better investigate workplaces and employers who flout labor laws that promise protections to all workers, regardless of immigration status,” Allen said. “It recognizes the value of protecting immigrant workers in order to protect all workers.”
Colin, the son of immigrants from Mexico and Honduras who worked in his family’s roofing business before entering law school, visited his client’s worksite to deliver his work authorization card and celebrate his protection from deportation.
“They put food in markets, roofs over heads, metal on metal – through freezing winters and scorching summers,” Colin said. “And despite the unforgiving conditions, they persevere.”
He and Allen worked with the North Carolina Justice Center, Centro de Derechos del Migrante, El Futuro Es Nuestro, NC Field, University of Georgia Community Health Law Partnership Clinic, and the Alabama Center for Immigrant Justice to secure protection for their clients.
