A panel discussion on “The Constitution and Immigration” is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday (Sept. 16) on the UW-Eau Claire campus, in recognition of Constitution Day.
The program will take place in in Room 1415 of Centennial Hall on the university’s lower campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Three legal experts from Minnesota will discuss immigration issues related to the U.S. Constitution, including executive power, federalism and the rights of people accused of crimes. The panel will be moderated by Eric T. Kasper, UW-EC associate professor of political science and director of the university’s Center for Constitutional Studies.
Panelists will include Linus Chan, associate clinical professor of law and director of the Detainee Rights Clinic at the University of Minnesota; Kathy Moccio, visiting assistant clinical professor of law at Minnesota; and Virgil Wiebe, professor of law and director of clinical education at the University of St. Thomas Law School.
The Detainee Rights Clinic defends the rights of indigent noncitizens incarcerated by the Department of Homeland Security. It is housed in the Minnesota Law School’s James H. Binger Center for New Americans.
The Center provides legal services for noncitizens, pursues litigation to improve the nation’s immigration laws and supports noncitizens in the region through education and community outreach. The Center was designed in partnership with leading area law firms and non-profit immigration legal services and is the only program of its kind in the United States.
Chan is an immigration attorney who focuses on defending immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He also teaches in the area where criminal and immigration law intersect.
Moccio has more than 25 years of experience practicing immigration law. From 2009 to 2017, she served as an assistant Hennepin County public defender, working with noncitizen defendants in the intersection of criminal and immigration laws. Earlier, she was in private practice at a number of firms and also worked for and consulted with numerous immigration nonprofits.
Wiebe is one of the principal architects of the Interprofessional Center for Counseling and Legal Services at St. Thomas, where students from the schools of Law, Graduate Professional Psychology, and Social Work provide counseling and legal services to diverse and under-served populations.
Before coming to St. Thomas, Wiebe worked in immigration law at a New York City nonprofit and was on the law faculties at Georgetown University and the university of Maryland. He has also been an active participant in efforts to curb the use of landmines and cluster bombs in armed conflicts.
The event is sponsored by the UW-EC Center for Constitutional Studies, whose goal is to promote research, education and community outreach on matters related to the state and federal constitutions. Funding was also provided by the UW-Stout Center for the Study of Institutions and Innovation.
Note: for information on the origin of Constitution Day, please see the story on UW-Stout’s programming for it, which can be found on the CVPost‘s home page directly above this article.
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