Director: Prof. Peter L. Markowitz

Initiated at the law school in 2008, the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic responds to the vital need today for quality legal representation for indigent immigrants facing deportation, while also providing students with invaluable hands-on lawyering experience. The clinic represents immigrants facing deportation before federal immigration authorities and in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and represents immigrant community-based organizations on litigation and advocacy projects.  Peter L. Markowitz, a practicing attorney and full-time clinical assistant professor, is the director.

NEWS:

On Wednesday, Oct. 19, a report based on data about Secure Communities cases obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the University of California Berkeley and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law found the majority of people arrested through program are jailed without bond, without access to a lawyer and without a court hearing. Read the Warren Institute Report and the UC Berkeley/Cardozo Law press release.

On Tuesday, August 10, The National Day Laborer Organization Network (NDLON), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law released internal government documents newly obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in a New York federal court in April. According to advocates who have reviewed the documents, they reveal a pattern of dishonesty regarding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency’s “Secure
Communities” (S-Comm) program. Read the NDLON press release
and NDLON briefing guide.

Cardozo’s Immigration Justice Clinic, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on April 27, 2010, in federal court, demanding records related to a government program known as “Secure Communities”. The program links FBI criminal databases with civil immigration databases. Students and advocates say the secretive program will increase racial profiling dragnets, and discourage immigrants from working with police to solve crimes. Read the press release and complaint.

Read the press release and full report from July 22, 2009, when the Immigration Justice Clinic released a report indicating constitutional violations by ICE agents. .

Read the press release from February 4, 2009 on the uncovering of secret Bush-era immigration failures. It includes a copy of new data and a previously secret memorandum from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.