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Emerging Issues for LGBT Immigrants, Asylees and Refugee Seekers CLE
I’ve been working on this for quite a while and will also have a practical comprehensive “know your rights” guide for everyone who attends the CLE, which focuses more on transgender issues. I worry that discourse around LGBT immigrants, refugee and asylum seekers is so U.S.-centric, so we’ll also speak to how other jurisdictions deal with this issue. On a related note, I’m working on a paper that articulates how queer migrant bodies and violence against potential LGBT asylum seekers is used to propel a particular civilizational discourse that functions as a way to justify and extend U.S. colonialism.
Monday, August 8 · 5:00pm – 7:30pm
Location: Room 3211 at Golden Gate University in San Francisco
By National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
2 Hours California MCLE credit will be provided. $40 for nonmembers; $20 for members (No one turned away for lack of funds). Free for non-credit seekers.
Register Online: http://crm.nlgsf.org/civic?rm/event/register?reset=1&?id=9
Co-Sponsors: Immigrant Legal Resource Center, South Asian Bar Association – Bay Area, Asian Law Caucus, Immigration Equality, Asylum Access, Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom.
About the CLE: Speakers will present on a multitude of issues regarding LGBT immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, including the progress made in adjudicating claims by same-sex bi-national couples, the impact of DOMA litigation or repeal of DOMA on LGBT immigrants. Speakers will also present on how LGBTI asylum cases would be handled in a variety of the jurisdictions outside the U.S. context and on the UNHCR refugee status determination process.
Speakers
Zachary M. Nightingale is partner at Partner at Van Der Hout, Brigagliano and Nightingale. His practice focuses on deportation defense and federal court litigation, with an emphasis on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions. Other specialties include asylum, naturalization, and family-based adjustment of status. A significant part of his practice includes advising non-citizens and their attorneys as to the immigration consequences of pending criminal charges, and how to minimize those consequences.
Emily E. Arnold-Fernández, Esq., the founder and executive director of Asylum Access, is a lawyer who has advocated nationally and internationally for the human rights of women, children, and other vulnerable individuals, Emily first became involved in refugee rights in 2002, when she represented refugees in United Nations proceedings in Cairo, Egypt. Emily’s legal advocacy won her client protection and safety in Egypt until his eventual resettlement in the U.S. Recognizing that refugees throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America – some of whom flee with nothing more than the clothes on their backs – were almost always unequipped to go into a legal proceeding in a foreign country, alone, and explain why they should not be deported, Emily founded Asylum Access to advocate on behalf of refugees seeking to assert their rights.
Chelsea Haley-Nelson is the EOIR liaison at American Immigration Lawyers Association of Northern California, a Co-Chair at BALIF and a Co-Chair with the Immigration Committee at National Lawyer’s Guild-San Francisco Chapter.