Professors Ahmad, Orihuela Hold Webinar on DACA Litigation Amid COVID-19

On April 7, 2020, Professor Muneer Ahmad, Deputy Dean for Experiential Education, and Marisol Orihuela ’08, Clinical Associate Professor at Yale Law School, participated in a webinar titled “DACA Litigation and Advocacy in the Face of COVID-19.”

The webinar was hosted by the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at the New School as part of a series of short discussions on the nexus of migration-related issues and COVID-19.

To listen to or watch the webinar, click here and look for the video under the April 7 date.

Ahmad and Orihuela co-teach the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic (WIRAC) at Yale Law School along with William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law Michael Wishnie ’93. In WIRAC, students represent individuals, groups, and organizations in both litigation and non-litigation matters related to immigration, immigrants’ rights, and labor, and the intersections among them.

Recently, WIRAC submitted a letter to the Supreme Court urging the court to consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on DACA recipients, and in particular, their vital role in the health care sector. The Clinic represents Dreamers in a case before the High Court in which a decision is pending.

WIRAC also filed a class action lawsuit on March 26, 2020, seeking the release of people in civil immigration detention who are at imminent risk of COVID-19 infection due to conditions at the Bristol County (MA) House of Corrections.