{"id":12136,"date":"2017-06-08T12:35:37","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T17:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/?p=12136"},"modified":"2017-06-09T09:18:50","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T14:18:50","slug":"immigration-orders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/2017\/06\/08\/immigration-orders\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Mitchell Hamline community assisted those affected by immigration orders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"When President Donald Trump first announced his temporary ban of travelers from Muslim majority countries earlier this year, Mitchell Hamline alums, faculty, and students were among those who jumped into action.<\/p>\n

Kara Lynum \u201911 (WMCL)<\/strong>, an immigration attorney in St. Paul, worked with the International Refugee Assistance Project to coordinate volunteer shifts for lawyers who wanted to help those caught up in the ban at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.<\/p>\n

\u201dI always knew we have a really great legal community here in Minnesota,\u201d said Lynum. \u201cI was so inspired by the overwhelming support that our project got from attorneys in every practice area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lynum said hundreds of attorneys from across Minnesota and the Dakotas offered to help.<\/p>\n

Volunteers monitored activity near the international arrivals gate at MSP, wearing badges identifying them as attorneys written in Farsi, Somali, and Arabic.<\/p>\n

Their job was to answer questions or respond to concerns of immigrants entering the country, or visa holders returning from abroad.<\/p>\n

Tara Murphy \u201912 (WMCL)<\/strong> isn\u2019t an immigration attorney, she practices intellectual property law in Minneapolis, but she felt it was her duty to volunteer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to law school to help people who were in power imbalances in relationships,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI\u2019ve always been a proponent of helping the underdog, someone who seems to have a system set up against them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other alums have found ways to help outside the airport. Salima Khakoo \u201802 (HUSL)<\/strong> runs American Dream Law<\/a>, an immigration firm in St. Paul.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been offering two to three free phone consults a day,\u201d said Khakoo. \u201cI\u2019m also helping with guidance on how to find attorneys who can help with specific matters like detained court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faculty at Mitchell Hamline have gotten involved as well.<\/p>\n

Ana Pottratz Acosta<\/strong>, a clinical instructor, has provided presentations on immigrant rights for the Hispanic Community through the school\u2019s United Family Medicine Medical-Legal Partnership.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of those times in your life where if you\u2019re going to talk the talk, you\u2019ve got to walk the walk,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Paula Duthoy \u201990 (WMCL)<\/strong> runs a private immigration firm and teaches in Mitchell Hamline\u2019s immigration clinic. Duthoy has done similar immigration rights presentations in Twin Cities-area mosques. When the travel ban was announced, Duthoy also heard from Mitchell Hamline students interested in getting involved.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cA lot of students are asking what they can do to help out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As a part of the Mitchell Hamline immigration clinic, students have gone to immigration detention court, to find people in need of legal assistance.<\/p>\n

For\u00a0student Maria Fernanda Torres De Jesus<\/strong>, who starts her third year at Mitchell Hamline in the fall, getting involved in the immigration clinic changed her course of study at Mitchell Hamline.<\/p>\n

Torres De Jesus, who\u2019s from Puerto Rico, focused on IP law during her first year at Mitchell Hamline. But since Trump\u2019s immigration bans were announced, she felt the pull toward immigration law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to help our people,\u201d she said. And for me our people is basically Hispanics all around the world. That\u2019s pretty much the feeling I get when I\u2019m in court and I can actually help someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torres De Jesus doesn\u2019t graduate until 2018, but has already started working at an immigration firm in Bloomington. She says that\u2019s where she plans to continue to do work on immigration issues after graduation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When President Donald Trump first announced his temporary ban of travelers from Muslim majority countries earlier this year, Mitchell Hamline alums, faculty, and students were among those who jumped into action. Kara Lynum \u201911 (WMCL), an immigration attorney in St. Paul, worked with the International Refugee Assistance Project to coordinate volunteer shifts for lawyers who … <\/p>\n

How the Mitchell Hamline community assisted those affected by immigration orders<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4909,"featured_media":12143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"category-news","9":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4909"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}