Immigration Clinic Alum Hillary Gaston Walsh wins ABA Pro Bono Publico Award

UNLV Immigration Clinic Alum Hillary Gaston Walsh (BSL '12) has been named a winner of the 2016 American Bar Association's in appellate immigration law while living abroad during her husband’s service in the United States Air Force. 

In accepting the award, Walsh reflected on how her experience in the Immigration Clinic shaped her career:

During law school, my passion became focused while working in the immigration clinic, where, under the wing of the brilliant clinic director, Professor Fatma Marouf, I assisted some of the most impoverished, desperate, and neglected members of our society: undocumented noncitizens. My first client was a 14-year-old girl who had been kidnapped and prostituted on the Las Vegas Strip. The stress this caused her mother manifested into Raynaud's disease, an excruciating illness that caused her fingertips to bleed and ache as if they were frostbitten. Though her daughter was now safe, her mother had lost her job because her employer learned she was undocumented; unable to afford food or rent, much less medical care, she was unsure how her family would survive. The T-visa and derivative applications I helped complete were approved, which allowed them to work and access medical benefits. Recently, they applied to become lawful permanent residents.

We are immensely proud.