This webinar will discuss U visa adjudication trends, including how Vermont Service Center is treating certain qualifying crimes and inadmissibility issues. Join to hear what practitioners are reporting and to learn practice tips for working with immigrant survivors of domestic violence and other crimes in the current climate.
Presenters
Alison Kamhi is a Supervising Attorney based in San Francisco. Alison is a dedicated immigrant advocate who brings significant experience in immigration law to the ILRC. Alison provides technical assistance through the ILRC’s Attorney of the Day program on a wide range of immigration issues, including immigration options for youth, consequences of criminal convictions for immigration purposes, removal defense strategy, and eligibility for immigration relief, including family-based immigration, U visas, VAWA, DACA, cancellation of removal, asylum, and naturalization. She leads ILRC’s project on driver’s licenses for immigrants, and also conducts frequent in-person and webinar trainings on naturalization, family-based immigration, U visas, FOIA requests, and parole in immigration law.
She has co-authored a number of publications, including The U Visa: Obtaining Status for Immigrant Victims of Crimes (ILRC); Parole in Immigration Law (ILRC); FOIA Requests and Other Background Checks (ILRC); Hardship in Immigration Law (ILRC); Naturalization and U.S. Citizenship (ILRC); Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and Other Immigration Options for Children and Youth (ILRC); A Guide for Immigrant Advocates (ILRC); and Most In Need But Least Served: Legal and Practical Barriers to Special Immigrant Juvenile Status for Federally Detained Minors, 50 Fam. Ct. Rev. 4 (2012).
Prior to the ILRC, Alison worked as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic, where she supervised removal defense cases and immigrants' rights advocacy projects. Before Stanford, she represented abandoned and abused immigrant youth as a Skadden Fellow at Bay Area Legal Aid and at Catholic Charities Community Services in New York. While in law school, Alison worked at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, and Greater Boston Legal Services Immigration Unit. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Julia Gibbons in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Alison received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and her B.A. from Stanford University. Alison is admitted to the bar in California and New York. She speaks German and Spanish.
Jess Farb
Jess joined ICWC’s San Francisco office in 2011. She got her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law in DC. She began U-vangelizing in 2003 during her AmeriCorps VISTA year at Casa Cornelia Law Center in San Diego. Jess represents a diverse group of U visa and VAWA clients, provides national trainings on the U visa, regularly appears on Univision, and is a co-author of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center’s U Visa Manual. She created and oversees the ICWC U Visa Zoho Database, a national and live web-based platform where over 1000 users share information on changing practices related to the U visa.
Angel Graf
Angel Graf is a Supervising Attorney in the ICWC San Francisco Office. Prior to joining ICWC, Angel was an Attorney Advisor for the Executive Office of Immigration Review. She has also worked and interned for Life Span Center for Legal Services and Advocacy, the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic, and World Relief Chicago’s Immigrant Legal Services. Angel received her J.D., magna cum laude, from DePaul College of Law (2012) with a certification in Public Interest Law. While in law school Angel focused on issues involving gender, inclusion, domestic violence, and immigration. She also holds a B.A. from Elmhurst College (2003), a M.A. in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University (2006), and previously worked in international relations, inter-cultural communication, and international human rights.