This year I had the great opportunity to attend the annual fall conference of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), held in Seattle, Washington. The theme of the conference this fall was “Mastering the Art of Removal Defense,” and consisted of an all-day Continuing Legal Education program designed to provide attorneys with a review of the basics of representing immigrants in removal proceedings as well as the latest developments in the law. The program also included a report from several attorneys who had recently volunteered for the hundreds of mothers and children detained at the Artesia facility as well as an update on the lawsuits filed recently to try to shut down that facility and put a stop to the expedited deportation practices of the Obama administration in response to the border surge.
Read moreTravel Report: AILA in Athens
Every year, the Rome District Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) holds a conference outside of the US. The Rome District Chapter is mainly composed of AILA members from the US, Europe, and Africa and specifically focuses on the visa application process and related consular issues, with an additional focus on outbound immigration (i.e., when US citizens need work or travel visas to Europe and beyond). This year, in March, the Rome District Chapter Conference took place in Athens, Greece.
As a first-time conference attendee and traveler to Greece, and inspired by Protima, Liz, and Jen's own travel reports on conferences in San Francisco, Vermont, and India, respectively, I am thrilled to report on this most recent travel and conference experience!
Read moreTravel Report: Highlights of the AILA Annual Conference in San Francisco
Every year the firm sends a few lucky attorneys to the annual American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) conferences. This June I was pleased to attend the San Francisco conference. The conference was perfectly timed. It started June 26, the day the Supreme Court issued its decision in two seminal cases on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which we will discuss in depth in a later post. On this day, in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court struck down section 3 of DOMA which denied federal benefits to couples in same-sex marriages.
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