Author: nreiter

Post 3: As my internship comes to an end, the world keeps on moving…

Faces of some of the many very hard working lawyers, social workers, paralegals, and interns at the monthly immigration unit meeting.

I’ve only been privy to some of the goings-on at a single nonprofit, so I certainly cannot speak for the world of work as a whole, nor for social justice work in general. However, I have learned quite a bit about what it looks like to operate within a legal nonprofit that, despite its considerable resources, brainpower, and passion, still has to work within the confines of a system that is pitted against its clients. I’d imagine this can be said for a lot of organizations similar to Legal Aid. Social justice work cannot exist without injustice. The impetus for the work is necessitated by a lack of that which nobody should have to fight for: basic respect, compassion, and protection by one’s fellow citizens and the government. Social justice work, from where I stand and from the little exposure I have had, seems to be about working simultaneously within and outside of the systems at play to ensure the humanization of the clients. 

I’ve been asked to write about what impact I’ve had on the organization in the time I’ve been there. I always struggle with this question. It’s not how I like to think. But, I’d say, in the short run, I’ve opened up space for the lawyers I have worked with to focus on tasks that only they are capable of doing. In the long run, I hope I will make the jobs of those at the organization a bit easier by mending the world they have to navigate with their client in some way. And it’s not an easy world.

One thing I’ve only begun to understand is how much let-down there is in this line of work. I was the person who discovered, due to some clerical error in the nebulous vacuum that is USCIS ( United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), that the visas we were preparing for a family of seven were going to take six years longer than expected. I discovered that a DACA client I was working with was actually ineligible for this status. I read the emails of a staff attorney desperately trying to get the casket of a young client she had worked with back to his mother.

There are barriers at every turn, yet there are also tremendous rewards. I’ve reassured many people, signed them up for benefits, listened to and documented their stories, and hopefully have made them feel heard. The other night I was interviewing the son of a woman who had suffered domestic violence, to hear his perspective. He’s fifteen. I explained that this would be the last time we would speak because I was an intern, but that his mommy ( he calls her mommy 😊) would be in very good hands. He looked at me and said “Oh nooooo, don’t go!” in a playful but earnest tone. In that moment, to have some confirmation that he and his mommy felt helped and heard was amazing. You can’t help everyone. So many things are out of one’s control; even the most senior of lawyers say that. But to know that there are concrete ways to make life better for some people helps to soften the blows and invite in hope. 

My advice for someone interested in this internship is to just give it a try. Call someone, e-mail someone, apply. It doesn’t have to be something you are 100% certain you will like. That defeats the purpose. A friend called me to talk about nonprofit work because he thought he might be interested (Like I’m some expert! No way!) and I had very few concrete answers for him. That’s when you stop thinking, and just start doing. Something. There is no other way to learn, especially in the nonprofit world.

If you’re interested in immigration, a great place to start is TRII (The Right to Immigration Institute). I’m still trying to connect more with the Waltham community, and this is a sound way of doing that and getting some truly hands-on experience not afforded to many undergraduates.

Post 2: Complete Understanding isn’t the Objective

One thing that I was cognizant of before coming to Brandeis, but which has been reinforced over and over inside and outside of the classroom at the university, is that there are a lot of things that I don’t understand. My time at Brandeis has further instilled in me two very important things: one, that I must harness my resources to gain as much of an understanding of the world around me as possible, and two, that there are some things, despite all the resources in the world, I will never understand. That second truth is incredibly important in all kinds of work, but especially the kind of work in which you are interacting with people from different cultures and backgrounds than yourself. 

I do see this changing, but I think that people often feel that the only way to create change is to understand, through and through, the experiences of other people. In my mind, that is fundamentally damaging because it keeps people racing toward some unattainable goal in which they are the hero of their own story of triumph over the unknown. What it stops them from doing is accepting right off the bat that they will never understand in full the reality of someone else, and moving forward from that to a place of collaboration. Through all of my courses, but especially my classes that centered around the American healthcare system, the juvenile justice system and the global health mechanism, I’ve learned time and time again that saying “I understand” when one actually doesn’t is a step in the wrong direction. 

We have weekly intern check-ins at my internship, and we have heard from a few of the staff attorneys about their careers and their time in the field. We heard from one woman whose perspective I really appreciated. She said something along the lines of, “I will never experience the things my clients have experienced, our realities are completely different, and that is okay.” While I don’t have the experience or the involvement that she has, from where I stand, I agree. There are many aspects of the realities of the immigrant clients I engage with that I cannot control, and even fewer that I can fully understand. It is my obligation to do the best I can to listen, to be compassionate, and to center every conversation around them and their experiences. It is also my obligation to not minimize them or their experiences by saying that I understand. That is not the goal. And I see that belief echoed throughout the organization. 

An email with a client I have been interviewing. I try to be friendly and conversational without watering down her experiences. I believe saying “I understand” is a harmful way of watering down someone’s lived experience. I try to use words like “story” instead of “affidavit,” because what we are dealing with is someone’s life, not a series of facts.

In terms of my own conduct, I do a combination of things to honor what I have just laid out. I read everything I can get my hands on so I can contextualize the experiences of those I work with. I just read The Dispossessed; A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexico Border and Beyond by John Washington, which I recommend. Being able to contextualize and being able to understand are two different things. I try to choose my words wisely, always lend my ears, and never think or express to the individuals I work with that an understanding of their reality is something I can master. And that’s okay. I’m glad I am not fooling myself, wasting my time and hurting others by believing that I understand. 

Post 1: Compassionate and Creative Counsel at the Legal Aid Society

The Legal Aid Society is a nonprofit organization that offers legal assistance to indigent clients in the city of New York through myriad practice areas. LAS works to help clients through direct legal representation, legal advocacy, and partnerships with many internal and external social services. Speaking more abstractly, LAS represents, in my opinion, the best of what legal aid can be: a holistic approach to counsel that puts the client in the best position to not only win their case, but to feel supported in other aspects of their life during, and often after, the period in which their case is being fought. This means that clients are connected to any number of social services they may need, including medical, physiological, housing, and  monetary support. Lawyers may call to just check up on the client–and really listen. Employees constantly push each other to be the best advocates they can be, through trainings, talk, and honest conversation. This holistic and compassionate approach to counsel is what I love about LAS, and why I was so excited to intern here!

I am working for the Immigration Unit at LAS. The first two weeks were spent in trainings, which really shows how dedicated the organization is to ensuring that every part of the organization is operating to the best of its ability. We got crash courses in all types of immigration-related topics, as well as trainings on case management and ethical lawyering.

I have two supervising lawyers who give me all different sorts of assignments. Like you’d expect, some of my time is spent filling out paperwork. It is less tedious than it sounds, as that means I get to call clients and ask for information, which is great practice. This also allows me opportunities to check up on them, which I enjoy. I am also working on a creative video project for an asylum case. This includes corresponding with the client and her family, editing the video, and writing a memo to document the legal precedent for such evidence. I am also interviewing a client for a Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) petition, a special type of protective immigrant status, and writing her affidavit. Additionally, I am working to compile evidence to demonstrate how the Chinese government contributes to the negative treatment of citizens with mental health issues. As a side project, I work to help clients answer their unemployment-related questions, and I will soon be working on DACA applications. Other than that, it is just small tasks here and there.

Like any nonprofit, LAS is very “all hands on deck.” In that way, every task I do helps the organization run as smoothly as possible. I definitely don’t feel like my work is getting lost in the mix. Everything I do feels like it has a direct and concrete purpose.  I hope I am furthering the mission of the organization by showing clients compassion, patience, and care during our interactions.

Progress doesn’t look like any one thing. Progress takes form in getting a client on Medicaid, or gaining enough trust to have them open up about really painful things. Progress takes form in the constant email chains on the LAS server where advocates push each other to be better. Progress is also a Supreme Court decision like that of DACA. Progress means combating negative changes to immigration laws, and in doing so creating a better future for all immigrants and native-born Americans.

To anyone reading who is able, I urge you to submit a comment ( by July 15th) to tell the Administration that the newly proposed asylum regulations, aimed to dismantle asylum as we know it, are disgusting and despicable. To learn more, look here, and to comment, look here.