University & College Partnerships
Building Collaboratively
The Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice develops collaborative partnerships with colleges and universities to train and to mobilize students for immigrant justice. SCIJ runs the training program and operates the legal clinic. Partners provide space and staffing support, and help with recruiting students for their campus’s program.
By partnering with SCIJ to empower students to advocate for social change, colleges and universities are leading the way in ensuring justice for immigrants and developing students prepared to make a difference.
Current Partners
Our Vision for Collaboration
With three successful programs already at UMass Boston, Brown University, and Worcester State University, SCIJ’s vision is to develop a network of schools across the US where students are being trained and mobilized for immigrant justice.
In figuring out whether or not a school is a right fit for SCIJ, there are five main criteria we look at: a clear and demonstrable need for legal support, immigration attorneys interested in partnering, the ability of a school to host SCIJ, someone who can champion SCIJ at the school, and the size and areas of focus of a school. These criteria are further explained below in SCIJ’s 5 Key Questions.
SCIJ’s Commitment to a Successful Partnership
For every partnership developed between SCIJ and a school, SCIJ is committed to creating an impactful and successful program. From training students to pairing them up with asylum seekers to engaging them in community organizing efforts, SCIJ’s approach is intentional, thoughtful, and impactful. SCIJ also invests in providing opportunities for broader campus engagement through events, workshops, and collaborative initiatives. Learn more about SCIJ’s approach.
A School’s Investment in Their Program
Schools also make 5 key investments to ensure their program is set up to effectively train students and support the community:
A sliding-scale membership fee based on the size and type of school
A work-study of equivalent position to support the school’s program
Space for students to work on cases
Academic credit for students involved in SCIJ’s program
Collaboration on mutual projects
Learn more about these below in the Building Success Together section.
Learn More About SCIJ’s Approach
Each fall, SCIJ trains 10-15 students in immigration law and community organizing. SCIJ is particularly focused on recruiting and training immigrant or first-generation students and other students who have historically been excluded from the legal field.
After students are trained, they begin working with asylum seekers and organize for immigrant justice. This includes being partnered up with local immigration attorneys and organizations, getting hands-on experience, and building long-term relationships.
As students gain experience, they take on leadership and mentorship roles, resulting in their continued professional and personal growth. SCIJ is also committed to creating a life-long community for students involved in its programs, even after graduation.
Click below to learn more about SCIJ’s training program, legal justice clinic, and community organizing.
SCIJ’s 5 Key Questions
Wondering whether or not your school is the right fit for SCIJ? Click below to learn more about the 5 key questions SCIJ asks when looking to partner with a new school.
+Is there a need for legal services for asylum seekers?
Prior to developing a program with a new school, SCIJ looks to whether or not there is a need for legal services for asylum seekers in the community. One of the data points SCIJ will look to is the population of immigrants living in the area directly surrounding a potential partner school. What defines the area directly surrounding a potential partner school will vary. In some places, SCIJ may look to the county and in other areas SCIJ may look to the metro area of a city.
SCIJ’s baseline goal is to look for areas with at least 90,000 immigrants. When looking at this datapoint, SCIJ also looks at a school’s location relative to the area selected. For example, a school at the outskirts of a metro area with a large immigrant population may be a worse fit than a school in the middle of a medium-sized immigrant population.
+Are there enough attorneys to partner with SCIJ?
SCIJ’s model centers on partnering students with immigration attorneys. This means that for any school that SCIJ may collaborate with, there needs to be local immigration attorneys to partner with students. SCIJ looks to ensuring there are enough attorneys to partner with at least 7 pairs of students in its first year of programming, and the potential to expand to 19 pairs of students partnered with attorneys.
Some attorneys are able to partner with multiple student pairs and some attorneys are only able to partner with one pair of students. Because of this, the number of attorneys needed to sustain a program could vary greatly location to location.
+Are there enough students interested in SCIJ's mission?
With plans of training 15 students each year, SCIJ needs to be partnered with schools that have enough students interested in immigration, law, and/or community organizing to match this goal. SCIJ generally looks to partner with schools that have undergraduate populations of at least 4,000-5,000. This number may prove to be too high, especially as schools that have a particularly large focus on social justice may attract more students to get involved.
SCIJ also takes into consideration the area(s) of focus for partner schools. For example, SCIJ would not partner with a cosmetology school but SCIJ could partner with a school that lacks a legal studies program but had strong interest from students. SCIJ might also partner with a business school over a humanities focused school if the business school has a lot of students interested in SCIJ’s program.
+Is there somewhere on campus SCIJ can call home?
Stability is key to being able to ensure clients are given the support they need and to ensure SCIJ is able to manage multiple programs. In order to provide this stability, every school SCIJ partners with needs to have a “home” for SCIJ’s program. A home could be an institute, center, department, or office on campus with staff and a platform to provide ongoing support to SCIJ. By having a home, this makes SCIJ’s program less reliant on a particular individual like a student, administrator, or faculty member.
Features SCIJ is looking for in a home could include:
- A emailing listserv to raise awareness about SCIJ and recruit students
- Physical space for students to work and/or meet with clients
- Endowed funding or other funding sources
- Paid staff, student assistants, and/or work study positions
- Cross-departmental or office investment (i.e. the institute, center, department, or office is not reliant on one person but has buy-in across the school)
+Is there someone who can champion SCIJ at the school?
To be able to secure space for SCIJ’s students to work on campus, pay for the membership fee, and other actions that require some level of authority, SCIJ requires all partner schools to have a point person who has decision making power.
This does not mean that the point person has to be someone who has a say over the school’s budget but they need to be someone who can either request funding or has their own funding. They either need to have their own work study position or equivalent, or they need to be able to request a work study or equivalent position. This person would not be an undergraduate student.
Building Success Together
In order for SCIJ’s programs to be successful at your school, SCIJ spends countless hours ensuring students have the skills to provide free legal representation and to organize for immigrant justice. Schools also make 5 key investments to ensure their program is set up to effectively train students and support the community. Learn more below.
5 Key Investments
To ensure the success of a school’s program, each school has a membership fee that goes into training and mobilizing students. This fee is based on a sliding scale that reflects the size and type of school.
Each partner school has a Campus Organizer to support SCIJ’s mission in the community. Campus Organizers can be students in SCIJ’s program, students enrolled at the partner school, or staff employed at the partner school. SCIJ has a strong preference for the Campus Organizer to be multilingual and an immigrant or first-generation American.
In order to provide students with a space where they can interview clients, work quietly, and meet together, partner schools provide a dedicated space for SCIJ’s students at their school or access to a shared private space such as a private meeting room in an institute that can be booked by SCIJ’s students. Schools also provide SCIJ with access to either a classroom space or other space for occasional workshops, meetings, or other events.
Schools must provide credit-bearing opportunities for students involved in SCIJ’s training, clinic, and organizing programs. These can be pre-identified, already existing opportunities such as internships or independent studies, or schools can create a course specifically designed to give students credit when they’re involved with SCIJ.
SCIJ aims to have all partnerships with schools be collaborative. This means that faculty and administrators are interested and available to collaborate together on projects. This could include presenting at conferences, joint press releases, co-teaching workshops, and providing ongoing feedback and support.
Seem Like a Good Fit?
Does your school seem like a good fit for SCIJ? Not sure and still have questions? Click below and we’ll get in touch with you as soon as possible.
Wondering what comes next? Depending on if SCIJ reached out to you or if you reached out to SCIJ, there are three potential pathways, all with similar steps, that come next.
+Pathway 1: SCIJ Identifies a Location
If SCIJ has identified a school and community that would be a good fit, SCIJ will contact potential partner schools and gauge community support. If there is community interest, SCIJ works with potential schools to build student and administrative support for developing a partnership.
+Pathway 2: Student, Administrator, Faculty Contacts SCIJ
The second way that SCIJ may end up partnering with a school is if a student, administrator, or faculty member contacts SCIJ and expresses interest in partnering. In order to ensure the program will be success, there needs to be clearly demonstrated student interest and faculty or administration support.
Students can show faculty or administration support through:
- Recruiting an advisor;
- Positive initial contact and introductory meeting; and
- A clear and affirmative written communication indicating the faculty member or administrator’s interest.
Faculty members and administrators can show student interest through:
- Interest form sign-ups;
- Current clubs or courses specifically focused on immigrant justice; and
- Clear and affirmative written communication from 5 or more students indicating their interest in SCIJ’s program.
SCIJ will also collaboratively work with the interested student, administrator, and/or faculty member to gauge community support. Ways that the interested student, administrator, and/or faculty member may be engaged in this process could include:
- Identifying organizations and individuals in the community to speak with;
- Organizing conversation with community organizations and individuals to discuss SCIJ’s program; and
- Providing introductions for SCIJ to community organizations and individuals.
+Pathway 3: Org, Attorney, or Community Member Contacts SCIJ
Pathway 3 is for when an organization, attorney, or other community member reaches out to SCIJ with an interest of seeing SCIJ come to their city. In these cases, SCIJ will work with the organization, attorney, or other community member to identify a school that could be a good partner and to gauge community support. The process of gauging community support for pathway 3 would be similar as with pathway 2 but, in this pathway, the organization, attorney, or community member would be engaged in the gauging support.
The Importance of Community Support
One of SCIJ’s core values is “Together, We Fight.” This value means that, “SCIJ understands that they alone cannot fix the systemic issues of the U.S.’s immigration system. SCIJ is committed to working with and supporting other people and organizations in this fight. SCIJ believes this work is not a competition but an opportunity for collaborating with and raising up others to address these issues.”
In line with this value is SCIJ’s requirement to have community support before partnering with a school. This does not mean that SCIJ cannot begin talking with a school(s) before receiving community support but it does mean that SCIJ cannot enter into conversations to finalize the partnership before receiving community support.
Community support is defined as a clear and demonstrable affirmation for SCIJ to join the city from organizations working most closely with immigrants. Organizations working most closely with immigrants include community organizing organizations or groups working with immigrants, legal service agencies supporting immigrants, general immigration services agencies, organizations serving immigrants, public schools, and other nonprofits.
Clear and demonstrable affirmation of community support can be shown through letters of recommendation to potential partner schools, formal partnerships, and written communications explicitly saying asking for SCIJ to establish a program in their community. Positive conversations, neutral comments, or non-responses do not constitute a clear and demonstrable affirmation of community support.
In order to gauge community support, SCIJ uses direct outreach to connect with community organizations, groups, and leaders. Depending on if a student, administrator, faculty member, organization, attorney, or community member has also been in contact with SCIJ, SCIJ will engage them in this process as well. This process would begin as early on as possible when SCIJ is considering partnering with a particular school and/or is interested in setting a program up in a particular city.
