This webinar will provide an up-to-date overview of USCIS guidance on extreme hardship that took effect December 5, 2016. Panelists will review the factors outlined by USCIS as well as the legal standard required for a successful hardship waiver for different grounds of inadmissibility. An important component of the new guidance is the inclusion of "particularly significant factors" or circumstances that strongly support a finding of extreme hardship. Panelists will explore these scenarios in depth and provide tips on how to connect your client's story with the elements highlighted in the new guidance.

Presenters

Allison Davenport

Allison Davenport joined the ILRC in 2015 as a staff attorney based in California's Central Valley, where she was born and raised. Prior to joining the ILRC, she was a clinical instructor with the International Human Rights Law Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law. At the clinic she directed the establishment of the Legal Support Program for undocumented students, the documentation of human rights abuses against LGBTI individuals in El Salvador, and the promotion of equal access to clean water in California. Allison practiced immigration law, first in private practice and then as founder of the immigration legal services program at Centro Legal de la Raza. Allison also formerly worked as a staff attorney with the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a JD and an MA in Latin American Studies. Allison speaks Spanish.

Alison Kamhi

Alison Kamhi is a Staff Attorney based in San Francisco. Alison is a dedicated immigrant advocate who brings significant experience in immigration law to the ILRC. Alison provides technical assistance through the ILRC's Attorney of the Day program on a wide range of immigration issues, including immigration options for youth, consequences of criminal convictions for immigration purposes, removal defense strategy, and eligibility for immigration relief, including family-based immigration, U visas, VAWA, DACA, cancellation of removal, asylum, and naturalization. She leads ILRC's project on driver's licenses for immigrants, and also conducts frequent in-person and webinar trainings on naturalization, family-based immigration, U visas, FOIA requests, and parole in immigration law. She has co-authored a number of publications, including A Guide for Immigrant Advocates (ILRC); Hardship in Immigration Law (ILRC); Naturalization and U.S. Citizenship (ILRC); Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and Other Immigration Options for Children and Youth (ILRC); The U Visa: Obtaining Status for Immigrant Victims of Crimes (ILRC); and Most In Need But Least Served: Legal and Practical Barriers to Special Immigrant Juvenile Status for Federally Detained Minors, 50 Fam. Ct. Rev. 4 (2012).

Prior to the ILRC, Alison worked as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic, where she supervised removal defense cases and immigrants' rights advocacy projects. Before Stanford, she represented abandoned and abused immigrant youth as a Skadden Fellow at Bay Area Legal Aid and at Catholic Charities Community Services in New York. While in law school, Alison worked at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, and Greater Boston Legal Services Immigration Unit. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Julia Gibbons in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Alison received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and her B.A. from Stanford University. Alison is admitted to the bar in California and New York. She speaks German and Spanish.

Nikki Marquez

Nikki joined ILRC in October of 2015 through a Ford Foundation Fellowship. She will contribute to manuals, develop practice advisories and community resources, and engage in some of ILRC's advocacy work. Nikki is a recent graduate from Stanford Law School, where she was a member of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic and interned at the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. Prior to law school, Nikki worked on anti-human trafficking policy and on issues related to the economic rights of survivors of domestic violence. In her free time Nikki enjoys hiking in Tahoe, playing basketball, scuba diving, and baking.