BLSA Presents Panel on Immigration & COVID-19

On January 18, FSU Law’s Black Law Students Association (BLSA) hosted a Zoom panel, From Cages to Closed Borders: Immigration & COVID-19. The event was the first panel of 2022 in BLSA’s racial justice panel series. Panelists discussed how the pandemic has impacted the U.S. immigration system and immigrants who have been denied Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), permanent residency, and citizenship. Among other topics, panelists talked about immigration policies such as Title 42, the intersection of immigration and criminal law, which is sometimes referred to as “crimigration,” and systemic racism as it relates to immigration policies. The event was moderated by Clinical Professor Ashley Hamill (’18), who directs FSU Law’s Farmworker & Immigration Rights Clinic, and the expert panelists were Alexandra Audate, an attorney with QueerMigration Law who has extensive experience representing immigrant clients; Yareliz Mendez-Zamora, who is the immigrant rights lead at the Florida Immigrant Coalition; and Breanne J. Palmer, an attorney who serves as immigration policy counsel at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Published on January 28, 2022