Congratulations to the 2012-2013 E-Board of the UW Latino/a Law Student Association:

President: Kate Finley

V.P. Academic Affairs: Alexis Blanco

V.P. of Community Affairs: Lia Ocasio

Legal Community Liaison: Karina Kuhrt

Treasurer: Jair Alvarez

Secretary: Luis Valdez

LEO Representative: Molly Bowen

Webmaster (Webjefe): Laura Steigerwald

1L Representatives: Adrian Perez & Lola Bovell

The majority are in facilities beyond the reach of legal aid groups, resulting in caseloads of 100 detainees per attorney, a rights group reports. An additional 10% have no access to any legal aid.

Even as the Obama administration seeks to create a more humane system of detention for illegal immigrants, most continue to be held in rural jails without ready access to legal representation, a human rights group says in a report to be released today.
In a survey of immigration detention facilities nationwide, the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center found that more than half did not offer detainees information about their rights, and 78% prohibited private phone calls with lawyers.
More than 80% of detainees were in facilities that were isolated and beyond the reach of legal aid organizations, resulting in heavy caseloads of 100 detainees per immigration attorney, the survey found. Ten percent of detainees were held in facilities in which they had no access at all to legal aid groups.

See the rest of the story at the Los Angeles Times.

Drivers beware: There’s a woman driving a stretch of Interstate 90 between Sparta and Tomah — without a license or any training about Wisconsin’s traffic laws.

Her name is Victoria. She’s a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico who works on a Tomah dairy farm with other undocumented immigrants whom  she says “all understand our boss through signals” because of language barriers.

Victoria, who arrived in Wisconsin 13 months ago, hasn’t taken any drivers’ training in the United States because Wisconsin law prohibits her from obtaining a license. She says she hasn’t had any run-ins with police, but requested that her last name be withheld out of fear she might be pursued as an illegal immigrant.

She is among a growing number of illegal immigrants who are finding work on Wisconsin dairy farms, located in rural areas where the only way to get to work is by car.

See more at WisconsinWatch.org

After trying to carefully balance their interests in health-care reform and immigration, the nation’s Hispanic lawmakers and largest advocacy groups are scrambling to develop a strategy to counter what they see as efforts to shortchange immigrants in health bills on Capitol Hill. Read more about it here.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who rose from the housing projects of the Bronx to the top of the legal profession, made history Thursday when the Senate confirmed her to become the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. UW-LLSA congratulates Judge Sotomayor on her amazing achievements in the legal profession! Read the story in English and Spanish.