This advanced webinar will discuss FOIA requests in immigration cases and provide tips for filing FOIA requests with the Department of Homeland Security (USCIS, OBIM, ICE, and CBP), the Department of Justice (EOIR), and the Department of State. We will also cover FOIA strategies for specific scenarios, including concerns for individuals in removal proceedings and appeal and litigation options.
Presenters
Alison Kamhi, Staff Attorney - Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Alison Kamhi is a Staff 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 A Guide for Immigrant Advocates (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); The U Visa: Obtaining Status for Immigrant Victims of Crimes (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.
Aruna Sury, Contract Attorney - Immigrant Legal Resource Center