Join co-authors of The U Visa Manual, Jessica Farb and Alison Kamhi, for the latest information on consular processing, travel, and parole for U nonimmigrant status applicants. The presenters will walk through the procedure for U nonimmigrant status applicants applying from abroad and address the latest policies on travel and parole for U visa holders.
Presenters
Jessica Farb, Directing Attorney – Immigration Center for Women and Children
Jessica Farb is the Directing Attorney in the ICWC San Francisco Office. Jess received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law. She began working with immigrant crime victims in 2003 as an AmeriCorps VISTA legal assistant at Casa Cornelia Law Center in San Diego. Then, while pursuing her law degree in Washington DC, she worked for the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and helped represent immigrant clients at Ayuda, Inc. and Holland & Knight’s Community Services Team. Jess also authored an article on the U visa with the Human Rights Brief. She returned to California in 2008 to coordinate the immigrant crime victim program at the International Institute of the Bay Area’s Oakland office, joining ICWC in 2011. Jess maintains a diverse caseload of U visa and VAWA clients, provides regional and national trainings on the U visa, and regularly appears on the Spanish language news channel, KDTV Univision 14. Jessica created and administrates ICWC’s national web-based information sharing for U Nonimmigrant Status practitioners, the U Travel and Certifier Database.
Alison Kamhi, Supervising Attorney - Immigrant Legal Resource Center
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.