Marissa Montes, founding director of the Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic, was born in Mexico and brought to the States as a child. What she — and her community — experienced growing up is what motivated her to do the work she does today. And today, she is in Mexico, meeting with Eduardo Osornio, the director of the Guadalajara office of LMU Loyola Law School’s Binational Migrant Advocacy Project (BMAP), which was launched a year ago to support migrants and families navigating immigration systems on both sides of the border.
Since high school, Montes knew she wanted to do immigrant rights work. As an undergrad, she worked at USC Gould School of Law Immigration Clinic. When it was time to choose a law school, she picked LMU Loyola Law School because of its focus on public interest and social justice work. At the time, it did not have an immigration clinic. Montes decided to start one. With the support of her mentor, Professor Kathleen Kim, Montes wrote up a fellowship project.
“Kim was the first person to educate me on the concept of community-based lawyering,” said Montes. “To switch up the power dynamic—instead of the attorney coming in and saying, this is what we want you to do. They listen to the community and are responsive to their needs. At the end of the day, the immigrant community better than any lawyer is going to know exactly how the laws impact them every day and often know the solutions.” . . .
Read the entire article at The Argonaut.
