Pictured at the Nov. 14 symposium are (left to right) Jason Eyster, partner, Lovell Stewart Halebian Jacobson, LLP; Bing Goei, director, Michigan Office of New Americans; Ieisha Humphrey, WMU-Cooley enrollment and academic services coordinator and adjunct professor for immigration law; Juan Caballero, legal fellow, American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan; and Susan Reed, managing attorney, Michigan Immigration Rights Center.
– Photo courtesy of WMU-Law
Experts involved in immigration law discussed immigration policies at a Western Michigan University Cooley Law Review Symposium at the law school’s Lansing campus on Nov. 14.
The event featured four panelists: Juan Caballero, legal fellow, American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan (ACLU of Michigan); Bing Goei, director, Michigan Office of New Americans (MONA); Susan Reed, managing attorney, Michigan Immigration Rights Center (MIRC); and Jason Eyster, partner, Lovell, Stewart, Halebian, Jacobson LLP.
Moderated by Ieisha Humphrey, WMU-Cooley enrollment and academic services coordinator and adjunct professor for immigration law, the group discussed how current immigration laws and policies affect children's social, economic, and educational development. Of particular focus were the consequences for families with mixed immigration statuses among its members and the impact on child immigrants and children of immigrants.
An immigrant himself, Goei recounted the opportunity his family was given when they immigrated to the United States in 1960. An easy, but secure immigration process allowed his parents to leave Indonesia with Goei and his siblings and come to Michigan. During the panel discussion, Goei talked about his observations of how immigrants are treated today.
“Somewhere also, we have lost our humanitarian perspectives on all this stuff,” Goei said. “[Immigrants] are still human beings and we’re just dealing with them like a statistic, or just like something we have to deal with.”
Reed, who has practiced immigration and immigrant rights law since 2003, echoed Goei’s sentiments about the treatment of immigrants and the current state of immigration law.
“All the lowest points in the law when you look back are the points at which the law said this person or this group of people are outside of the concern of the law — whether it’s the three-fifths compromise or the Dred Scott decision — and I really believe we are living some of the lowest moments in the law in the history of our country,” Reed said.
Caballero, who is responsible for a range of litigation and advocacy work at the ACLU of Michigan, urged the law students in the audience to consider taking the opportunity to educate themselves on immigration law, and said there is always space for advocacy of policy and legislative changes in the legal community.
“Seek out pro bono opportunities. Seek out opportunities where you can be an advocate for individuals who might not be able to afford someone in their corner,” Caballero said. “Immigration proceedings are not an area where you are a court-appointed attorney. Individuals, especially in the state of Michigan, have to rely very heavily on the private bar, which is fine, but at the end of the day, we’re talking about a very vulnerable population that often can’t afford representation.
Eyster, who began concentrating in immigration law in 1997, added, “As an attorney, one of the greatest things you can perhaps do is just to be present, be there.”
At the conclusion of the event, Humphrey presented a call to action.
“Please go forth and advocate for great change, because it is very well needed,” she said.
Before joining the ACLU of Michigan, Caballero attended New York University School of Law, where he interned with the Immigrant Defense Project in New York City and the Pima County Public Defender’s office in Tucson, Arizona. He also spent the summer of 2015 interning with the ACLU of Southern California’s National Security and Immigrant Rights Project. Caballero spent two years working with the Immigrant Rights Clinic at NYU Law.
Goei was appointed as MONA’s first director by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2014. As a director of MONA, he works to “pay forward” his good fortune of an easy, but secure immigration process by working tirelessly on behalf of New Americans today who also want to call Michigan home.
In addition to her work with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, Reed is a member of the first class of W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network Fellows, as well as the Detroit City Council Immigration Task Force. Reed serves as secretary of the Steering Committee for the Michigan Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and co-chairs the Advocacy Committee of the Michigan Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Eyster has served as a clinical professor at several law schools, including WMU-Cooley Law School, Wayne State University Law School and the Peking University School of Transnational Law. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Fordham Law School, where he founded and was editor-in-chief of the Fordham International Law Journal. In his current work, he focuses on class action lawsuits.
In addition to the annual symposium, the WMU-Cooley Law Review also coordinates an annual Distinguished Brief Award ceremony, recognizing and awarding scholarly briefs filed before the Michigan Supreme Court.
