Social Justice Lawyering Clinic

Moshannon Valley Processing Center

Today, the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic (SJLC) publishes In the Shadow of the Valley: The Unnecessary Confinement and Dehumanizing Conditions of People in Immigration Detention at Moshannon Valley Processing Center. This report is the first to comprehensively investigate conditions at Moshannon, the largest facility in the Northeast that detains immigrants who are awaiting the processing of their deportation cases. It is written by Cristina Isabel de Arana (’24), Alex Leone (‘25), and Bianca Taipe (’25), law students in the SJLC.

The report is based on interviews conducted by a coalition of community-based organizations, law school clinics, and legal nonprofits who made site visits to the newly opened detention facility in Centre County, Pennsylvania in 2023. People who are detained at Moshannon are being held under punitive, inhumane, and dangerous conditions. They have tightly controlled schedules, live in a “pod” with 60-70 other people, wear brightly colored jumpsuits, and are restricted from accessing the outside world. Further, people at Moshannon have reported issues ranging from the inability to get medical care to physical and psychological abuse by staff. Despite Moshannon’s “conversion” into an immigration detention facility, it operates more like the former federal prison that it once was.

Immigration detention facilities like Moshannon, which cost millions of dollars per month to operate, have not created a fairer, safer, or more efficient immigration system. Instead, detaining immigrants is contrary to this country’s ideals of fairness, freedom, and opportunity. Rather than piecemeal reforms for an already broken system, the government needs to consider alternatives, such as community-based case management systems that can work with people to screen, process, and ensure their attendance at immigration court. For this reason, the report calls for the closure of Moshannon.

See news coverage of the report on WHYY, States’ Newsroom, and Telemundo.

Link to PDF

A Sheller Center First

In a first for the Sheller Center, clinic students have worked with the Philadelphia DA’s Office to assist with the prosecution of labor crimes. Carolina Fernandez (’25), Ingrid Lopez Martinez (’24), Lucas Masin-Moyer (’24), Drew Perkoski (’25), represented a group of workers who worked for a moving company called EJ Relocations LLC. They alleged that the employer failed to pay their wages and threatened them to prevent them from making legal claims for their wages. Assistant District Attorney Maria DiGeorge (‘21), a Temple Law alum and a former Sheller Center clinic student, leads the prosecution against the principals of the company, who were recently charged with intimidation of witnesses, conspiracy, and involuntary servitude.

Students Participate in Workers Summit  

Social Justice Lawyering Clinic students, students, Adam Karbeling (’24), Jackie McCann (‘25), and Alex Suarez (’25), have partnered with the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA-PA) to draft stronger legislation to protect domestic workers against retaliation, exploitation, and other unfair and illegal practices. Together along with other worker advocate groups, the NDWA-PA organized the Philly Workers Fight Back Summit in November, which brought different workers together to share stories, find solidarity, and devise strategies concerning the draft legislation. “It was great to see the excitement surrounding this legislation at the Philly Workers Fight Back Summit, where everyone I talked to was interested in various details of the legislation and had thought deeply about it,” said Karbeling, who attended the event. See here for Philadelphia Inquirer coverage of the event.

Helping Temple students understand their rights as tenants

In this week’s Temple News, journalism student Alayna Hutchinson reports on a plan by students in our Social Justice Lawyering Clinic to provide better information to Temple students — especially undergraduates — about their rights as tenants in off-campus housing. Casey Dwyer and Anna Manu Fineanganofo, 2Ls, developed the plan in consultation with the Office of the Dean of Students, the Cherry Pantry, and the Law School’s student-organized Housing Justice Initiative. Law students participating in the program would offer legal information to students with questions about their leases or rental conditions; if legal advice or representation were needed, a student could be referred to one of Philly’s legal services organizations.

We’re grateful to Temple News reporter Alayna Hutchinson for digging into the important issue — well documented by Temple’s own Hope Center — of how to get more legal help to students with problems involving basic needs.

Protecting Immigrants in Need of Long-Term Medical Care

In late September, Philadelphia City Councilmember Jim Harrity introduced a bill seeking to end medical deportation in the city by hospitals. Three Temple Law students in the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic, Sarah Hampton (’22), Livia Luan (’23), and Adalberto Rosado (’23), worked along with the Free Migration Project to draft this ordinance ensuring that ill, injured, or elderly uninsured patients will not be deported to their country of origin against their will due to financial or language barriers. Check out this Philly Inquirer article that has more about this practice and how this bill will assist this endangered population.

Latest update: On December 14, 2023, the bill passed 14-1 in the final session of City Council for the year.

Child Abuse Registry Disproportionately Harms Black Workers and Families

Today, the Sheller Center, along with Penn Law School, released a report tracing the racial harms of the Registry. The report, titled Pathways to Poverty: How the ChildLine and Abuse Registry Disproportionately Harms Black Workers and Families, summarizes a year-long investigation by students finding that Black Pennsylvanians are more likely to be reported for child abuse, be placed on the Registry, and lose a job as a result. Further information can be found in our press release and the subsequent coverage with WITF, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Philadelphia Inquirer.

After years of hard work by advocates, Berks Immigration Detention Center to close

The Berks County Detention Center–—which first held immigrant families and then women—is finally shutting down. The federal government announced that it is ending its contract with Berks County on January 31, 2023.

The Shut Down Berks Coalition, comprised of organizers, lawyers, immigrant leaders, faith communities and allies, has long been advocating for the closure of the facility due to the inhumane treatment of immigrants, many of whom are fleeing violence and seeking protection. While the facility first opened in 2001, it was under the Obama Administration that a record number of immigrant families were detained at the center, including mothers and infants. Most recently, Berks County converted the facility into one that held adult immigrant women.

The Social Justice Lawyering Clinic (SJLC) has long been working in support of the coalition to call for closure of the facility. Rhiannon DiClemente (‘16) and Paige Joki (‘17) first outlined the case for why the facility was illegally holding families and children under Pennsylvania law. In 2016, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (PA DHS) revoked the operating license for the facility. John Farrell (‘17), Anthony Sierzega (‘18), and Mariya Tsalkovich (’18) then drafted an Urgent Action Appeal on behalf of over 50 immigrant right organizations with the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention arguing that the facility is engaged in unfair and arbitrary practices that restrict liberty and endanger the health and dignity of families.

In opposition to Berks County’s continued litigation to challenge the revocation of their license, SJLC filed an amicus brief on behalf of physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility about how detention inflicts serious harm on asylum-seeking children. In December 2019, Emma Pajer (’20) and Jediah Grobstein (’20) helped to file a lawsuit on behalf of several families based on PA DHS’ unlawful back door agreement to continue operation of the facility without a license. In March 2021, when Berks County decided to convert the facility into a women’s detention center, Lina Ruth Duiker (’22) and Kate Steiker-Ginzberg (’22) helped Berks County residents file a Sunshine Act lawsuit against the county for being secretive about its proposal for conversion and expansion of bed space at the facility.

All this work by SJLC was done in collaboration with community and legal partners: Aldea, Al Otro Lado, Free Migration Project, Juntos, Make the Road Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, Syrena Law, and Villanova’s Farmworker Clinic.

At the end of the day, what triumphed was the powerful voices of the parents and children who had been detained at this facility. In a letter to the outside world, the Madres de Berks questioned how the U.S. government could continue:

“… depriving them of having a normal life, knowing that we have prior traumas from our countries, risking our own lives and that of our children on the way until we arrived here, having family and friends who would be responsible for us and who are waiting for us with open arms and that immigration refuses to let us out.”

As we continue to grapple with immigrant detention in Pennsylvania, may we remember these voices.

Seeking feedback from attorneys about language access in PA courts

Social Justice Lawyering Clinic (SLJC) students David Baldwin (’22) and Livia Luan (’23) created a survey tool for attorneys to capture their experiences with limited English proficient (LEP) persons in the Pennsylvania courts. This tool was created as part of a statewide advocacy effort to ensure that LEP litigants, victims, and witness have a right to an interpreter in the Pennsylvania courts. This fall, law schools across the state will launch a survey with local community groups created by the same SJLC team.

For any attorneys who have experience with LEP persons in the Pennsylvania courts, please take the survey here.

In 2017, Pennsylvania issued a statewide language access plan in response to the systemic failure of Pennsylvania courts to provide interpreters to limited English proficient (LEP) persons. Such failures were previously documented by SJLC students in their reports Unfinished Business: The Continuing Challenge for Limited English Proficient Individuals in Pennsylvania’s Minor Courts  and Barriers to Justice for Non-English Speakers in the Pennsylvania Courts. In collaboration with the coalition, this new work by SJLC is intended to assess the how the courts are faring with the new statewide language access plan.

Students create tenants’ guide for unsafe or inadequate housing

A Tenant’s Guide to Suing Your Landlord: Holding Landlords Accountable for Unsafe Housing Conditions is a step-by-step pro se guide on how tenants can proactively file cases against their landlords for substandard conditions. Many tenants live in unsafe or inadequate homes. This is no accident. Landlords profit by neglecting housing while still collecting full rent from tenants. More than 300 properties in Philadelphia have been cited as unfit for human habitation every year. Tenants rarely sue their landlords, but landlords annually file 24,000 eviction cases in Philadelphia alone.

The guide is an interactive tool with fillable forms, checklists, and worksheets. It walks tenants through the process of identifying their housing issues, providing notice to their landlords, collecting evidence, and preparing for court interviews and hearings. By engaging in the bite-size steps laid out in the guide, tenants will develop their personal statement and evidence (including damages calculation) needed to make a strong claim. Ultimately, the fillable forms in the guide can be submitted to the Court as evidence of the tenant’s case, reducing the barriers and confusion that a tenant may otherwise face in filing a pro se claim.

Lina Ruth Duiker (’22), Ashley Hyman (’22), and Maria Thomson (’22) developed the guide as part of the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic. The guide was created on behalf of the Tenant Union Representative Network (TURN), which partners with the community to advocate for a legal system that values housing as a human right. Tenants can bring the guide to TURN or another housing advocate for additional support and individualized advice if needed. By empowering tenant groups and increasing their access to justice, the guide seeks to shift the narrative away from identifying tenant poverty as the primary cause of substandard housing to recognizing the primary role of landlord neglect.

Helping a client get back his wages

  • By Colin O’Neil

At the end of my 1L year, I knew what a complaint was, had learned some civil procedure, and had some abstract ideas of the difficulties disadvantaged communities face. After participating in the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic, I’ve written an actual complaint, figured out how to apply civil procedure to a real case, and helped an actual client get the money he was entitled to from his former employer.

In our first meeting, my client—who knew little English and brought his son to translate—explained that he was an immigrant from Pakistan who had worked at a gas station in Philadelphia. For the seven months he worked there, his employer paid him well below minimum wage. Worse, he was never paid at all for his final few months of work. He didn’t want to sue his former boss, but didn’t know what else to do.

At the time, I didn’t really know what to do either. However, my partner and I worked through the possibilities and began drafting a complaint. Writing this complaint was the first thing I did in law school that would have a real-world impact on someone’s life, which was just as valuable, and scary, as it sounds.

After filing the complaint, we heard nothing from my client’s boss for months. When we finally sent him notice of our intent to file for default judgement, his attorney called us. We then began the settlement process. I went back and forth with opposing counsel, negotiating a settlement offer for my client. Months later, right before it seemed like negotiations were about to break down, my client decided to settle. Though it was less than he could have gotten if he had won at trial, he came away happy with this amount. I’ll never forget when his son called to thank me for helping his father.

Through the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic, I was able to apply what I had previously learned in the classroom to represent a client through their whole case—from our first meeting in the Sheller Center all the way to settlement. Along the way, I gained the skills and confidence I’ll need to continue helping clients in the future.