USD Law Advocate, Spring 2026

immigration asylum program at the nonprofit Jewish Family Service of San Diego before running her own practice, joined the law school in 2022 as the clinic’s adjunct professor and supervising attorney. “My vision is that this clinic becomes the preeminent border clinic in the United States,” Lin said. The clinic assists immigrants with a wide range of issues including work authorization; immigration assistance for victims of crime, domestic violence and abuse; and more. With the recent increase in the num ber of arrests and deportations, the Immigration Clinic has become extremely busy. In 2025, the clinic received funding to hire additional staff attorneys and elevate Lin to a full-time professor of practice. The clinic now enrolls 10 students each semester, and Lin says that number increases with returning students. It also utilizes a paralegal, Legal Clinics Assistant Director Analisa Hernandez ’21 (Parale gal Certificate), and Legal Clinic Fellow Mathilda Schmidt ’23 (LLM), who can appear before U.S. Citi zenship and Immigration Services and/or immigration courts as partially or fully accredited representatives with the Department of Justice. One man from Guatemala, who faced persecution in his homeland, sought asylum in the U.S. With Lin supervising, Schmidt handled the case, and the students helped prepare the man for his cross-examination and attended the court sessions. “He cried at the end of the trial when he won,” Lin stated. “It was satisfying for the students to see the end result.”

Some cases can take years to work their way through the system, so students are often assigned to cases that had been started by a prior student. Amber Rahim , a 3L student participating in the clinic, worked on the case of a USD graduate from Myanmar. Rahim con tinued the work begun by clinical interns in previous semesters who helped the woman apply for asylum. In the fall of 2025, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Ser vice scheduled an interview with her, and Rahim helped prepare her client for the appointment. “I asked her questions so she could get used to what they might ask,” said Rahim, who joined the woman at the interview and delivered the argument for her asylum. “It is great for students to be part of these clinics,” said Luana Lima ’25 (LLM), who spent 10 months at the Immigration Clinic preparing green card petitions and K-1 visa applications. “I will be taking the lessons I learned there with me throughout the rest of my career.” ADVOCATING FOR THE INNOCENT In 2026, USD Law opened its 13th clinic: the Innocence Clinic. To make this clinic possible, USD is partnering with the Innocence Center—an independent nonprofit dedicated to freeing innocent people from prison and assisting them upon release from prison. The Innocence Center has roots in the California Innocence Project, an organization that was cofounded and directed by Professor of Law Justin Brooks from 1999-2023. The California Innocence Project was one of the few original

innocence organizations that began in the 1990s, ultimately becoming part of a network of 66 innocence organizations around the coun try and more than 100 around the world. Brooks himself has helped launch dozens of innocence organi zations in Latin America. Under Brooks’s leadership, Cali fornia Innocence Project lawyers and students freed more than 40 innocent people from prison, who together served more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. The lawyers at the

Professor Alysson Snow and Housing Rights Clinic members take a deposition.