Immigration Law Concentration

Program Highlights

• Comprehensive curriculum with a wide variety of classroom courses that build knowledge of immigration law, and three different clinics that allow students to advocate for and interact with clients in numerous aspects of immigration law practice.
• ​One of the strongest immigration law faculties in the country, with professors who combine international prominence, significant scholarship, and extensive practice experience.
• Clinics conducted through the Center for New Americans, the only program of its kind in the U.S., which works with nonprofit immigration legal services and large firm partners to provide direct legal services and information to immigrants and refugees, conduct impact federal litigation, and improve immigration laws in the U.S.
• Strong array of clinical and experiential opportunities that range from a focus on detainee rights to asylum law to federal immigration litigation and community outreach and education.
• Writing opportunities with the Minnesota Law Review, Minnesota Journal of International Law, and Minnesota Journal of Law and Inequality.
• Access to professors conducting cutting-edge immigration-related research throughout the University of Minnesota, including the right to travel, the impact of human rights treaties on asylum adjudication, the constitutionalization of human rights law, and novel interpretations of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
• Opportunities to participate in high-profile immigration and detainee rights litigation with our partners at the law firms of Faegre Baker Daniels, Robins Kaplan, and Dorsey & Whitney and nonprofit organizations such as the ACLU, Advocates for Human Rights, Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, and Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid

Study Opportunities

• Required courses: Immigration Law, one of the four relevant clinics, and immigration outreach externship or field placement.
• Recommended courses include refugee and asylum law, criminal law and immigration, human trafficking, civil rights, and many other elective courses.

Practical Opportunities

• Students can participate in four clinics: Detainee Rights Clinic; Federal Immigration Litigation Clinic; Immigration and Human Rights Law Clinic; Rural Immigration Access Clinic.
• Students can participate in an outreach and education externship or an immigration law field placement.

Employment Opportunities

• The vibrant Twin Cities legal community offers opportunities for part-time work during the school year and full-time summer employment with governmental agencies, law firms, and nonprofit organizations.Prospective employers from around the country recruit from the Law School to interview students for summer and permanent positions, and the Career Center provides regular notice of employment opportunities, fellowships, and other scholarly opportunities.
• ​With one of the largest populations of immigrants in the U.S., the Twin Cities metropolitan area contains four immigration detention facilities and a U.S. Immigration Court. The Immigration Law concentration affords students numerous opportunities to advocate for immigrants in these venues.
• Prospective employers from around the country recruit from the Law School to interview students for summer and permanent positions, and the Career Center provides regular notice of employment opportunities, fellowships, and other scholarly opportunities.

Student-Led Opportunities

Voices for Immigration Student Association, Asylum Law Project, Amnesty International—Law And Policy, International Law Society, Latino Law Students Association, Muslim Law Students Association, Asian Pacific American Law Student Association (APALSA), and South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA)