AILA is proud to announce that the application for the 2020 Michael Maggio Immigrants’ Rights Summer Fellowship Program is now open. Michael Maggio was an extraordinary immigration attorney with a passion for social justice. As an attorney, he took up the defense of asylum-seeking Central Americans threatened with deportation and worked on the landmark Filartiga v. Pena case in 1980. While he sadly lost his battle with cancer in 2008, his passion for helping the most vulnerable continues through this annual Fellowship, strengthening law students’ long-term commitment to promoting justice and equality for vulnerable immigrant groups.
Run by AILA, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, the Fellowship will be awarded to one law student each summer to work on a student-initiated project. For consideration, each student must submit a project proposal with an organization willing to host the student for 10 weeks and provide a $1,500 stipend. The $1,500 amount may be paid by the host organization or may be provided by the law student through other means, e.g., law school public interest funding, independent fundraising, etc. The Maggio Immigrants’ Rights Fellowship will provide an additional $2,500 stipend for a total award of $4,000. More details may be found on the Maggio Fellowship website.
Applicants may submit their applications to me directly at elynum@aila.org for consideration by the three sponsoring organizations. The deadline for applications for the 2020 Maggio Fellowship is February 1, 2020.