Immigrant Justice Lab
Semester: Spring 2026
This course trains and supports teams of undergraduates to contribute research and writing for asylum applicants represented by attorneys at the Mabel Center for Immigrant Justice. The course operates on four parallel tracks. The first is basic training in asylum law. The second involves a mixture of collaborative planning, research writing and editing about the history of the societies from which our asylum seekers have fled. Students will be divided into teams and assigned case facts. They will generate research questions, build dossiers of research materials, and draft legal briefs relating their research findings to the pertinent questions in asylum law. The third involves reflection and on the ethical practice of legal advocacy, and responsible depictions of violence and injustice in foreign cultures. Fourth, students will participate actively in planning, building, and nurturing a partnership between an academic institution and a community-based organization.
