This webinar will cover the different types of background checks available for you and your client, including FOIA, FBI, state, and court-specific records requests. We will explain the types of records obtainable from each request and offer tips on how and where to file records requests. Using examples, we will walk through when each type of records request may or may not be appropriate for your client’s situation.
Presenters:
Alison Kamhi, ILRC Staff Attorney
Alison is a dedicated immigrant advocate who brings significant experience in immigration law to the ILRC. 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 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 enjoys playing the piano and traveling. Before law school, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to study the rise of neo-Nazism and anti-immigrant sentiment in former East Germany. She has also lived in Russia, France, Cambodia, and Madagascar. Alison received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and her B.A. from Stanford University.
Lena Graber, ILRC Special Projects Attorney
Lena has been involved in immigrant rights work for ten years, focusing on enforcement and detention issues. Lena joined ILRC in 2013 as Special Projects Attorney to lead ILRC’s work on DACA services and trainings, as well as contribute to ILRC legal manuals and enforcement advocacy. Prior to joining the ILRC, Lena was a Soros Justice Fellow at the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, where she supported local campaigns against ICE detainers, provided training and education on the detention and deportation system, and litigated constitutional rights cases related to ICE enforcement. Previously at the National Immigration Forum, Lena worked with border communities to improve accountability for human rights abuses by Border Patrol, and contributed to national immigration policy advocacy and reform efforts. Lena graduated from Wesleyan University and George Washington University Law School, during which she worked on international human rights litigation in South Africa, co-managed a domestic violence email hotline, and aided local racial justice work with the Advancement Project and ONE DC. Lena is a proficient Spanish speaker, a tap dancer, and once she was an immigrant rights mime.