Students in the IRC represent newly arrived unaccompanied children facing deportation, refugees fleeing human rights abuses, and other vulnerable immigrants in court and administrative proceedings.<\/p>\n
Helen came to the clinic seeking legal help in order to win asylum in the US. \u201cOur client was from Russia, but because of her background, she was facing persecution from an early age, and difficult situations culminating in violent attacks on her life, and so what we were trying to do was protect her from that situation,\u201d Russell says.<\/p>\n In order to understand Helen\u2019s past, Russell and Tinoco spent months researching oppression and xenophobic sentiments in Russia, as well as the rise of white supremacism.<\/p>\n With the research, Russell and Tinoco interviewed Helen and wrote up a legal memo in which they outlined their main arguments to support Helen\u2019s request for asylum in America.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were trying to say that you cannot send this person back because harm is going to come to this person,\u201d Russell says. \u201cEither they have already been persecuted or they fear being persecuted, and we don\u2019t want them to go back and have these things happen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n But unraveling Helen\u2019s story, for Russell and Tinoco, proved to be difficult at first.<\/p>\n \u201cGenerally, since they\u2019ve been persecuted, even talking about their story is very emotional for the client,\u201d Russell says. \u201cIt can be difficult when interviewing them because they can be upset, but I think it gives them a sense of hope that their story has been told.\u201d<\/p>\n Building a relationship with Helen was the most important and crucial step in the process. For Russell and Tinoco, the duty of telling Helen\u2019s story and winning her asylum was what kept them motivated throughout the process.<\/p>\n \u201cThe interviewing can be very taxing on the client, emotionally. And you can even feel quite emotional too because you\u2019ve developed a bond with the client, so you feel for them,\u201d Russell says. \u201cIt can be very stressful, but once you see that you\u2019ve done all this work to help this person and you know how much it means to them, I think it\u2019s all worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n Russell and Tinoco also worked with experts on Russia\u2019s racial and social conditions, who helped write affidavits and testify in court to strengthen Helen\u2019s asylum case.<\/p>\n \u201cThe expert can testify whether or not he believes, based on Helen\u2019s story, that the client would be likely to be persecuted in the future,\u201d Tinoco says.<\/p>\n Tinoco contacted over 25 experts in order to find one who would best represent Helen\u2019s story, and having that expert to testify during Helen\u2019s case in court proved to be critical.<\/p>\n \u201cIn immigration, you only need about a ten percent chance or probability of the client being persecuted in order to win the case\u2014but that ten percent is difficult to overcome without a testimony from an expert,\u201d Tinoco says.<\/p>\n Tinoco’s inspiration to help clients in the IRC was rooted in her own story as an immigrant. \u201cIt\u2019s work that is very important to me,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m an immigrant myself. I was born in Mexico and came to America at a young age, and it\u2019s always been a lifelong dream of mine to be able to work with immigrant communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Russell’s previous work as an ESL instructor in immigrant communities in Texas inspired her to continue supporting those in need. \u201cI spent a lot of time working with immigrants in the community and saw the struggles that they were facing,\u201d she says. \u201cOne of the reasons I wanted to attend BU Law was because there are a lot of classes and clinics to get involved with immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n By June 2016, Helen had won asylum in the US. For Russell and Tinoco, knowing that their client is safe now has been the most rewarding part of the process.<\/p>\n \u201cJust exiting the court house when she won her case, it was such an exciting moment for all of us,\u201d Russell recalls. \u201cMireya and I had spent so much time working on this and we were all there and it was just this moment of relief. Everyone was in such a good mood, but it was all for the happiness of the client.\u201d<\/p>\n With the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic,Valerie Russell and Mireya Tinoco (both \u201917) helped their client, an immigrant from Russia facing persecution in her home country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11260,"featured_media":35566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[2337],"bu-publication":[3742],"record-article-category":[3749,3768,3758],"record-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/35564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35564"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/35564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71231,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/35564\/revisions\/71231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35564"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=35564"},{"taxonomy":"record-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/record-article-category?post=35564"},{"taxonomy":"record-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/record-topic?post=35564"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=35564"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=35564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Valerie](\"\/law\/files\/2017\/01\/Russell-Valerie.jpg\")
![\"Mireya](\"\/law\/files\/2017\/01\/Tinoco-Mireya.jpg\")
Reported by Greg Yang (CAS’17).<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"