Promoting Access to Justice for Immigrants
Photo by Alex Gagne
Promoting Access to Justice for Immigrants
When Alex Mooradian (’15) was in law school, he worked on a case for a man from South Sudan. One of the so-called Lost Boys, a generation of children separated from their families by the Second Sudanese Civil War, Mooradian’s client had been abducted when he was seven years old and forced to fight on the front lines of the conflict. He came to the United States as a refugee but then found himself in removal proceedings.
The case, and Mooradian’s experience as a student-attorney in the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (now the Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program, or IRHTP), had a significant impact on his career. Now a partner at Glickman, Sugarman, Kneeland & Gribouski in Worcester, Mass., he practices all aspects of family- based and humanitarian immigration law—from Special Immigrant Juvenile cases and asylum work to applications for green cards, visas, and citizenship.
“I had a general idea that I wanted to do direct services [after law school], and an interest in immigrants’ rights, but it was in the clinic that I honed that interest and got hooked on immigration law,” he says.
Students in the IRHTP provide pro bono representation to vulnerable noncitizens facing deportation and survivors of human trafficking. In recent years, the program has won asylum for families fleeing gang violence, domestic abuse, and political persecution. It has sent students and faculty to Arizona to provide legal services to detained immigrants and to Tijuana, Mexico, to help migrants understand their rights as they enter the US and seek asylum.
“The clinic takes on some of the toughest cases,” Mooradian says. “Cases that have been shopped around and are so complex and so time-consuming that other agencies cannot take them. Under Julie Dahlstrom and Sarah Sherman-Stokes’ leadership, it’s an excellent introduction to immigration law.”
You really develop a connection with the rest of your clinical class. We share materials, ask questions, develop new theories for cases. It’s a great collaboration that’s continued after the clinic.
Through the years, Mooradian has maintained the connection that he first felt to the program. He’s continued to work on cases related to spurious gang activity with Sarah Sherman-Stokes, assistant director of the IRHTP, and has stayed in touch with his classmates.
“You really develop a connection with the rest of your clinical class,” he says, noting that many of his clinical classmates went on to practice immigration law. “We share materials, ask questions, develop new theories for cases. It’s a great collaboration that’s continued after the clinic.”
He also mentors current students participating in the program, which he says has been incredibly rewarding. “I’ve been impressed so much with the level of engagement in the program by the students,” he notes. “They have busy schedules, they have their own classes and caseloads, but they take the time to stay in touch—it’s been a very fruitful program.”
Recently, Mooradian extended his support by establishing the Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program Fund, which provides support for curriculum development, student travel and legal research, and clinical fieldwork.
“I’ve been supporting BU Law since graduation, but I really wanted to be sure that the funds go directly to the clinic,” he says. His goal for the fund is to help the clinic provide direct services to a very vulnerable population of immigrants while also training future leaders in the immigration field. “If you believe in immigrants’ rights and you believe in promoting access to justice for immigrants regardless of their income, I can’t think of a better place to invest a donation than this particular clinic.”
“We’re incredibly grateful that Alex has chosen the Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program as the beneficiary of his generous donation,” Sherman-Stokes says. “We’re excited about the ways in which this will help continue to build and grow the program, and our hope is that it will inspire other alums who have benefited from the program to give as well.”
“Sometimes there’s a difference between what the law says and what is right,” Mooradian says. “I’d like to see the school advocate not for the way that society is now, but for the way it should be. BU Law students are equipped to do that—as long as the clinic is there to guide them.”
Support the Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program Fund
