What does an immigration lawyer do when a client’s most urgent problem isn’t immigration law, but insulin?
That was one of the questions confronting Mexican and U.S. law students gathered at the Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Guadalajara campus August 12 for a binational exercise examining what happens after deportation.
The simulation capped The Rhizome Center for Migrants’ six-day “Frontlines and Fault Lines: Migration, Resistance, and Resilience” immersion program, which brought U.S. law students to Guadalajara to learn about deportation from the Mexican side of the border.
Students from the University of Washington and University of Texas at Austin worked alongside Tec de Monterrey law students, guided by Rhizome Center founder and immigration attorney Tran Dang, UW professor Georgina Olazcon and Tec law program director Javier Contreras.
Their hypothetical client, “José,” was a 68-year-old Cuban man who had lived in the United States since age two before being deported to Mexico. His children and grandchildren remained in the United States. He spoke little Spanish, had no meaningful ties to Mexico, lacked identification and stable housing and had serious health needs. What he wanted most was simple: to return home to his family.
But getting there was anything but simple.
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