LSC Legal Advocates Present Trainings to Practitioners and Youth
Did you know that alongside their work representing young people in their legal cases, LSC’s attorneys and Department of Justice Accredited Legal Advocates provide information, education, and technical assistance to youth, their caretakers, and youth-serving professionals? Here are some of the trainings our legal team has provided in the past few weeks:
Tanhya Cardenas, who leads LSC’s DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) Project, delivered know-your-rights trainings to over 100 Bay Area high school students and members of San Francisco’s Youth Rising coalition. Youth learned about San Franciso’s Sanctuary City ordinance, due process rights, protections offered by the 4th and 5th Amendments, how to ensure their families are prepared in the event of immigration enforcement actions, and how to seek support from immigration rapid response networks.
David White trained attorneys on the process of petitioning for a legal guardian for a child whose parents may have died or who are unable to care for their child. He was joined on the panel, organized by the Bar Association of San Francisco, by Claudia Quintana of the Justice and Diversity Center and the Honorable Vedica Puri. David leads LSC’s Guardianship Project as well as representing foster youth through LSC’s Dependency Project, and he co-teaches LSC’s child lawyering courses at University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.
Stephany Arzaga, LSC’s Associate Legal Director and co-lead of our Detained Immigrant Children’s Project, joined the Practising Law Institute and a panel of other experts in immigration law to offer training to over 200 youth-serving professionals. This training offered a deep dive into the first stage of the process of petitioning for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a complex form of immigration legal protection for young people who have been abused or abandoned by their parents. SIJS is a multi-step legal process that involves a petition at the state court level as well as with federal immigration authorities.
