Four 2024 University of Wisconsin Law School graduates are among over 130 Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC) Fellows joining the fight for immigrant justice in more than 30 states.
Fellows serve for two years as staff attorneys at immigrant legal services providers and community-based organizations across the country. They provide high-quality legal assistance to low-income immigrants in complex immigration matters, including removal defense and affirmative applications for those fleeing persecution.
Wisconsin’s fellows include:
Alayna Connolly, Community Immigration Law Center
Connolly has experience in both family and immigration law. During her time at UW Law School, she volunteered and interned with the Community Immigration Law Center, where she primarily worked on Temporary Protected Status and asylum applications. She was also a clinical student with the Family Legal Advocacy and Supports Clinic. Her experiences working with the immigrant community and working in family law have made her interested in the intersection between these two areas of law. She is excited to continue working with the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison as part of the Unaccompanied Children Program.
Alayna Connolly
Anika Lillegard-Bouton, University of Wisconsin Law School Immigrant Justice Clinic
Lillegard-Bouton attended the University of Northern Iowa, where she studied psychology and Spanish. During Law School, she participated in the Immigrant Justice Clinic for two years and also spent a summer working with the clinic. During her time with IJC, Anika worked directly with clients on a variety of matters including asylum, cancellation of removal, special immigrant juvenile status and more. She is very excited and grateful to continue her work with IJC by providing representation to unaccompanied minors in Wisconsin.
Valeria Martinez, University of Wisconsin Law School Immigrant Justice Clinic
Realizing her family’s migration brought about her opportune life, Martinez found purpose in serving her immigrant community. She began to volunteer then work in immigration law as a paralegal. In Law School, she was a clinical student for the Immigrant Justice Clinic, where she will serve as a Justice Fellow. She looks forward to being a part of a dedicated cohort of immigration attorneys representing unaccompanied minors and hopes to help give them a chance at a stable, safe and legal life in the United States.
Cristina Villalovas, Canal Alliance
This fall, Villalovas will be relocating from Wisconsin to California to start a fellowship at Canal Alliance in San Rafael. There, she will be handling a variety of unaccompanied minors cases alongside other attorneys. She was inspired to continue working with children after taking cases at the Immigrant Justice Clinic at UW Law. Through Immigrant Justice Corps, she is excited to expand her knowledge of immigration work, meet like-minded fellows who are passionate about immigrants rights, form a community within Immigrant Justice Corps and Canal Alliance, and become aquatinted with a new population to serve.
Making the Greatest Difference
“Wisconsin is considered a desert for immigration legal services, especially for children who often face immigration court alone,” said Erin Barbato, director of UW Law’s Immigrant Justice Clinic. “The addition of these four talented and committed lawyers who will represent children facing deportation will ensure they will not only understand their rights but also not stand alone to face a terrifying deportation system. I am grateful that our Law School has helped build lawyers committed to access to justice and the human rights of unaccompanied minors."
Conceived by the late Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and incubated by the Robin Hood Foundation in 2014, Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC) identifies promising lawyers and advocates passionate about immigration, places them with organizations where they can make the greatest difference and supports them with training and expert insights as they directly assist immigrants in need.
To date, over 400 IJC Fellows have supported more than 100,000 low-income immigrants and their families with a success rate of 90% on cases completed.
Submitted by Law School News on June 20, 2024
This article appears in the categories: Alumni, EJI News, Features
