Immigration Law and Policy Association
ILPA Executive Committee Members
President: Stuart Matthews
Vice President: Stacy Clark
Co-Secretary: Tammie Szafran
Co-Secretary: Rochelle Watson
Treasurer: Chris Gray
The objectives of the Immigration Law and Policy Association are to:
1. Establish immigration law and policy at UML as an area of law worthy of particularized extracurricular academic focus due to its technical complexities and many distinct sub-specialties including business immigration (e.g., industrial, corporate, and small business sponsorship; permanent labor certifications; temporary and seasonal workers; foreign national treaty traders; and self-petitioning entrepreneurs), family immigration (e.g., spousal and extended family sponsorship, family unity, removal of conditions, evolving notions of family and their impact on immigration policy, immigration consequences of divorce, domestic abuse and immigration protections, dual citizenship, and the status of children), educational and training matters (e.g., foreign national students, optional practical training, and exchange programs), human rights (e.g., asylum, refugee, temporary protected status, human smuggling, and human trafficking), undocumented migration, overstays, and criminal overlap (e.g., removal proceedings, forms of relief, bars to readmission, indefinite detention and habeas corpus, and immigration consequences of criminal activities), and immigration litigation at the administrative and federal appellate levels;
2. Provide a forum and outlet through which students at various levels of interest and commitment to the practice of immigration law can learn from each other as well as from faculty, scholars, private practitioners, and representatives of relevant federal agencies and administrative tribunals about the intricacies, professional ideals of, and policy problems surrounding the theories and realities of immigration law practice;
3. Initiate and administer educational and motivational activities and programs centered on immigration law and its intersect with a diversity of legal and cross-disciplinary concerns including counter-terrorism, national and transnational crime, domestic and international labor, human rights, family unity, domestic violence, international trade, foreign aid, and global economics;
4. Participate, independently and/or in cooperation with other student groups, non-profit organizations, law firms, companies, academic institutions, and professional associations, in assisting local migrant communities through active involvement in attorney-supervised outreach and pro bono programs;
5. Encourage active and responsible immigration policy debate and advocacy in the public arena;
6. Bring students in closer contact with the organized immigration bar at the local, state, and national levels;
7. Promote the organization and its objectives to the UML student body, administrators, faculty, and staff;
8. Sustain and grow the organization through appropriate and creative fundraising activities;
9. Assist the UML administration and faculty in the promotion and development of immigration-related academic programs designed to aid the UML student body; and
10. Any and all additional objectives as set forth in the organization's Bylaws.
ILPA is a student organization formally recognized and funded in part by the University of Maryland School of Law ("UML," supra and infra), pursuant to the UML Student Organization Manual and the UML Student Handbook, and by the Student Bar Association of the University of Maryland School of Law (hereinafter “SBA"), pursuant to Article X of the SBA Constitution. The organization is otherwise independent and unaffiliated with any particular student group, non-profit organization, law firm, company, academic institution, or professional association, unless otherwise stated in the organization's Bylaws.
Should you have any questions or need any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact Stuart Matthews ().
