Podcast: Professor Muneer Ahmad Defends Immigrant Rights and “Clinical Heresy”
In this episode of the Inside Yale Law School podcast, Sol Goldman Clinical Professor of Law Muneer Ahmad sat down with Dean Heather K. Gerken to discuss the remarkable achievements of the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. From grounding a plane at JFK to stop a deportation, to fighting for young immigrants at the Supreme Court, the clinic and its students have made headlines and changed the lives of clients whose futures hung in the balance.
Muneer Ahmad co-teaches in the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic (WIRAC) and has represented immigrants in a range of labor, immigration, and trafficking cases. He also teaches Refugee and Immigration Law, Policy, and Practice in Crisis. His scholarship examines the intersections of immigration, race, and citizenship in both legal theory and legal practice.
Fighting for Dreamers at the Supreme Court (14:18)
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program protects young immigrants from deportation. When the Trump administration rescinded the program, WIRAC successfully fought for DACA all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ahmad recalls the day that oral arguments took place in 2019:
“There were literally thousands of people who had gathered from early in the morning on a pretty cold day to demonstrate their commitment to undocumented youth and to immigrant justice. And when the argument ended, and the plaintiffs and their lawyers — and this was a large group of folks — descended the marble steps of the Supreme Court, this roar went up...There's no question that people inside the building could hear what was going on."
Read more:
WIRAC Wins Monumental SCOTUS Case on DACA
Frantic hours at the airport during the travel ban (27:34)
In January 2017, the clinic sprang into action when the Trump administration issued an executive order barring entry of people from several majority-Muslim countries. Ahmad recalls how, in the space of 12 hours, the clinic won a temporary restraining order in federal court. When the clinic heard that a Fulbright scholar had been put on a plane back to Iran in violation of the order, they started making phone calls:
“An enterprising first-year law student, who had been in the clinic for all of three weeks — his name is Ricky Zacharias — found a number for air traffic control at JFK… And I was amazed that he found a number that led to a live person...”
Read more:
Yale Law Clinic Secures Victory in Challenge to Refugee and Muslim Ban Executive Order
Why Yale’s unconventional approach to law clinics works (37:20)
Ahmad tells what “heretical” learning experiences teach students about being a lawyer.
“We've done class actions in the clinic. That is completely anathema to the conventional orthodox vision of two students representing one client over the course of a semester or two semesters. But that has been really valuable, I think.”
Read more:
Home is Here (Yale Law Report feature on the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic)
Clinical Education at Yale Law School Celebrates 50 Years (Yale Law School news)
