Jacqueline Brown Scott

Brown Scott described her work as a professor and the supervising attorney of the University Of San Francisco School Of Law Deportation Defense Clinic as more than a full-time job.

The clinic is also a legal service agency that is part of that San Francisco Immigration Legal Defense Collaborative and uses law students to conduct “know your rights” presentations and deportation defense across the state.

“This year is mostly dealing with all the changes that have come from the new administration that is trying to curtail immigrant rights and especially target unaccompanied children that are asylum seekers,” Brown Scott said of her work.

She and her students conduct immigration information workshops in the greater Bay Area but also work to expand legal representation, especially for unaccompanied immigrant children in areas like California’s Central Valley, she said. Every semester, Brown Scott assigns deportation defense cases to six to eight law students as part of a class she teaches that is related to the clinic.

“A majority of those cases are for unaccompanied children,” Brown Scott said, adding that students prepare cases and accompany their clients to asylum and other hearings.

Brown Scott also organizes trips to immigration detention centers in Dilley, Texas and elsewhere each semester to assist asylum seekers with what are known as credible fear interviews, one of the initial steps in an asylum application.

In the fall, Brown Scott along with law students and fellow professor Bill Hing organized the first Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals renewal workshop in San Francisco at the Jewish Community Center.

Brown Scott is also the family detention coordinator for the American Immigration Lawyers Association Northern California chapter and organizes trips to out-of-state detention facilities with volunteer immigration attorneys.

— Chase DiFeliciantonio