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Twelve students from the Duke Immigrant and Refugee Project (DIRP) assisted non-citizen North Carolinians with applications to become U.S. citizens Sept. 30 in Durham.

Students conducted intake for individuals requesting assistance, completed their applications for naturalization, and provided guidance on how to package and mail out their applications. The event was hosted by El Centro Hispano in its Lakewood office and organized by the NALEO Education Fund. DIRP is a student-led pro bono group at Duke Law School that assists immigrants and refugees in the Triangle through legal research, resources, and outreach.

“It was a pleasure getting to work with Duke Law students,” said Armando Cruz-Martinez, interim mid-Atlantic director of civic engagement with the NALEO Education Fund. “Community members who received assistance commented on the professionalism and kindness that the volunteers provided them throughout the day.”

Said Olivia Callan ’25, a student volunteer who coordinated the event: “Volunteering at the clinic was a wonderful opportunity to learn from immigration attorneys and advocates in the Triangle and get hands-on experience working with clients.”

Another member of the pro bono group, Haejin Park ’24, said serving the community in Durham was “both a rewarding and educational experience” and he hopes their assistance “made the naturalization process feel a little less daunting for the applicants.”

While the process can take over a year to complete, naturalization is the sole way for longtime residents of the U.S. to obtain true permanence in the United States, along with the right to vote.

“Individuals assisted at the clinic were impressed by and thankful for the work of our law students,” said Clinic Fellow Jenny Kim, who supervised the students. “It was a great time.”

The following day, a group of 11 DIRP volunteers supervised by Immigrant Rights Clinic director Kate Evans assisted agricultural workers south of Durham who are seeking protection against deportation and retaliation while they support investigations by federal labor agencies into wrongdoing by their employers.

The one-day Deferred Action Clinic on Oct. 1 was organized by the North Carolina Justice Center (NCJC), Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (Center for Migrant Rights) (CDM), NC FIELD, and It's Our Future/El Futuro Es Nuestro (IOF), and hosted by Saint Ann Catholic Church. “Deferred Action For Workers In Support of Labor Investigations” provides temporary protection from deportation along with temporary work authorization for qualified workers.

“Participating in the Deferred Action Clinic was an incredible learning experience and served as a reminder of the important work that we as lawyers have a duty to do in order to ensure that basic human and labor rights are being upheld,” said Gabriela Nagle Alverio ’25, project coordinator and executive director of DIRP.

“In interviewing the migrant workers, I learned about the abuses being carried out by their employers — from threatening to frame them for crimes to paying them much less than was promised to them in their initial contracts and firing some abruptly in order to instill fear in the rest. Notably, this was happening to documented workers, raising concerns about the abuses employers are carrying out to those more vulnerable. My hope is that by filing for deferred action, these workers will have the power to choose to work for employers that do not violate their rights.”

Added Evans: “Our student volunteers showed great flexibility and dedication in ensuring that we could complete as many applications as possible in a single day. The people we served are housed at their employers with very limited time off and limited access to transportation, so it was essential that we complete the applications from start to finish in the same day. This would not have been possible without the outreach by organizers at NC FIELD and IOF and legal support from NCJC, CDM, and Duke Law students.”