Archive for 'Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic'

FIU Law alumnus Daniel Sibirsky ’06, who just formed his own law firm, Sibirsky Law Firm, P.A., passed the Florida Bar board certification exam for Immigration & Nationality Law.

To be Florida Bar board certified, and to call yourself an expert, you must earn this through testing, area-specific continuing legal education and confidential peer review.

We recently sat down with Sibirsky to reflect on his time at FIU Law.

How did you become interested in immigration law?

I was born in Ecuador and immigrated to the United States as a child.  That experience was as a key motivator to focus on Immigration Law.  In addition, while I was at FIU Law, I was fortunate enough to participate in the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, which gave me an excellent introduction to Immigration Law.

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Third-year law student Andrea Canona will begin her law career as a law clerk through the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Honors Program, the largest and most prestigious federal entry-level attorney hiring program.

“When the Department of Justice informed me that I had been selected I was ecstatic, and frankly, a bit surprised,” Canona said. “The selection process is very competitive and I feel very fortunate to be in this position.”

Selections to this prestigious program are made based on several elements of a candidate’s background including a demonstrated commitment to government service, academic achievement, legal aid and clinical experience, leadership, and extracurricular activities that relate to the work of the DOJ.

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Third-year FIU Law student Samah Abukhodeir, was featured in a series of public interest videos for AlJazeera English Channel. She was one of six people chosen to discuss immigration issues as they relate to the 2012 U.S. elections.

“I think people forget what this country was founded on, that we’re all immigrants,” said Abukhodeir. For her, the top election issues are “jobs, immigration, and student loans.”

Samah Abukhodeir, a Palestinian-American law student, has been a student attorney in the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic for two semesters, where she has developed a passion for international human rights. She was born in Bartow, Florida to immigrant parents and received her Bachelors of Science in Psychology with a minor in Arabic and Child Development from Florida State University.

Watch the trailer:

By Martin Haro

Eight law clinics are currently operating within the College of Law at FIU. There, law students are not only gaining hands-on experience in many areas of practice but also improving the lives of their fellow community members. In this second part of a two-part story, we tell you about some of the cases handled by the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, the Investor Advocacy Clinic, the Health, Ethics, Law and Policy (H.E.L.P.) Clinic and the Community Development Clinic.

Since 2004, the College of Law at FIU has had a flagship clinical program that provides students with hands-on experience outside the classroom.

“We are very much a law firm focusing on educating the next generation of lawyers through close supervision of law students as they practice for the first time and provide policy advocacy and community education throughout Miami-Dade,” said clinical director Peggy Maisel of the program, which primarily serves underprivileged individuals and nonprofits that must meet a certain threshold to receive services.

In part 1 of this two-part story, we told you about the work that has been done at Consumer Bankruptcy, Environmental Law, the Family and Children’s Advocacy and the Immigrant Children’s Justice clinics. Now, we share the good word on the work of the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, the Investor Advocacy Clinic, the Health, Ethics, Law and Policy (H.E.L.P.) Clinic and the Community Development Clinic.

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FIU Law’s Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic and Professor Juan Carlos Gómez were featured in a recent Miami Herald article for their work with low-income undocumented migrants applying to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

Professor Gómez is a Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor of Law at FIU. Gómez has been defending the rights of individuals in immigration matters for the last twenty years. During this time he has represented persons before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the United States Departments of Justice and Homeland Security in complex immigration matters. Within the field of immigration law, he has helped thousands of individuals in situations including removal and deportation proceedings, family immigration, and the transfer of professionals and executives to the United States.

“You hear all of these incredible stories of young people who have been brought to the United States and have such hope to contribute so much,” Gómez said. “They want to run businesses. They want to be accountants. They are paying for college out of their own pockets. These are incredible human beings, who will only make us a richer nation.”

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Saturday, August 25, 2012 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

On the heels of President Obama’s enactment of the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) program, FIU’s College of Law in conjunction with PICO, Americans for Immigrant Justice, S.W.E.R. (Students Working for Equal Rights), and the Florida Immigrant Coalition, will host a day long clinic to help young persons to apply for deferred action.

Local attorneys, volunteers, along with students and recent law school graduates will volunteer to help DACA-seeking young adults determine if they qualify for the program and assist them in filling out the DACA applications.

This is the second DACA workshop with two more planned for South Florida in the upcoming weeks- one in Homestead and another in Little Havana.

The event will be held on Saturday, Aug. 25, from 8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m. at the College of Law’s Atrium.

DACA grants temporary two-year residency permits to undocumented young adults less than 30 years of age as of June 15. It is aimed at qualifying immigrants who came to the U.S. on or before June 2007 and who were 16 or younger at the time of their arrival. Among other qualifications for the program, the young adults must be free of serious criminal convictions, be enrolled in or have completed high school, or have served in the U.S. military.

Law students help those eligible for naturalization complete forms

WHAT: The Florida International University College of Law will be hosting a Citizenship Drive to help individuals eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship complete their N-400 naturalization forms. Under the supervision of Clinical Professor Juan Gomez, law students in the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic will conduct the one-day drive. The event is part of a series of drives the College of Law is organizing for its Citizenship Project.

FIU Law also will host two citizenship exam review sessions during the drive. The sessions will be led by Miami-Dade County Public Schools instructors with support from FIU Honors College students.

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