The Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) is offering an online training course for legal practitioners who will be representing unaccompanied children in removal proceedings. It will be offered September 17 through October 15 this year. You can still register here, and take the course for free.
Here is CLINIC’s description of the course:
This four week e-learning course is designed for practitioners who will be counseling or representing unaccompanied children who are now in removal proceedings. Course participants will learn about the factors contributing to the large numbers of Central American children seeking refuge in the United States, the current policies relating to detention and release of unaccompanied children, and special considerations involved in representing children, including best practices for interviewing and counseling children and for addressing ethical concerns. In addition, each week of the course will incorporate a review of key remedies available to unaccompanied children, including special immigrant juvenile status, asylum, U and T visas, motions to suppress and prosecutorial discretion. The course will use webinar presentations, readings, and sample documents to explore these issues and provide course participants with a solid understanding of the law and skills required to represent unaccompanied children. Course participants will also receive information related to pro bono opportunities to represent unaccompanied children. For a detailed course outline, including the dates and times of the live webinars, click here.
Training Level: Introductory
This is an introduction to representation of unaccompanied children in removal proceedings. Course participants who are new to removal proceedings are encouraged to view CLINIC’s rapid e-course: Overview of Representing Children in Removal Proceedings, which reviews the fundamentals of what happens in immigration court. A link to the course is included in the unit one materials.
The trainers for this course are CLINIC attorneys Sarah Bronstein and Debbie Smith, and other guest speakers. For questions about the course content, please contact Sarah Bronstein at sbronstein@cliniclegal.org.
The course starts on September 17th with access to the e-learning course website and our first course webinar. Once you receive your user name and password, you may participate in a variety of activities for self-directed learning, including reading materials, sample applications to review, and a discussion forum. The course will be interactive, with opportunities for online and real-time discussion among students, and between students and instructors. The course also includes five webinars conducted on consecutive Wednesdays at 2:00 p.m. eastern starting on September 17. Each webinar lasts approximately 90 minutes, and is recorded and posted on the course website after the webinar is conducted. Although we encourage participants to attend the live webinars each week, you will be able to listen to and view a recording of any webinar you are unable to attend whenever you choose to do so.
Course Completion Requirements: Course participants will receive a course completion certificate if they attend or view recordings of the five weekly course webinars. You have up to two weeks after the last live webinar in the course to meet these requirements.
Registration: The training is for the staff of Catholic Charities and other community-based organizations with IRS 501(c)(3) status, and attorneys and legal staff of private law offices. If you are registering as staff of a community-based organization, you must fax a copy of your IRS 501(c)(3) letter designating your agency as a nonprofit entity to CLINIC at (301) 565-4824 to the attention of Jon Braswell. Your registration will be confirmed upon receipt of this letter. If you are an attorney, please include your state bar number..
Please provide the full name and a working email address for each individual taking this course. We will communicate with each registrant via email only, so it is very important that we have the correct name and email address for each registrant listed on the registration form.
Space is limited. The deadline for registration is September 10, 2014 or sooner if registration is filled. For registration information contact Jon Braswell at jcbraswell@cliniclegal.org
CLE: CLINIC is authorized by the State Bar of California to provide minimum continuing legal education (MCLE) trainings. E-learning participants are eligible to claim 1.5 hours of MCLE credits per webinar for the webinar component of our e-learning immigration law courses. If you are an attorney licensed in another state, please check with your state bar to determine whether this training qualifies for MCLE credit.
