El Paso Job Opening
Job Opportunity: Managing Attorney
Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, El Paso, Texas
Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center (“Las Americas”) is seeking a full-time attorney with management experience. Las Americas is a nonprofit center located on the U.S./Mexico border in El Paso, Texas that offers legal representation and advocacy. Las Americas specializes in cases related to asylum, immigrant female survivors of domestic violence, and unaccompanied immigrant children.
Las Americas delivers: (1) legal services (2) “know your rights” trainings and immigration forums, and Las Americas leads the way with (3) community organizing (4) and education.
El Paso is one of the major gateways for immigration into the United States. El Paso is also one of the largest depositories of detained immigrants from all over the United States. Las Americas presents a unique opportunity for an attorney who wants to focus on social justice, advocate for the poor, and practice immigration law.
Job Responsibilities:
• Casework, including case screening; the preparation of affirmative asylum applications
• Supervise the Asylum Project and take majority of the asylum caseload
• Provide litigation and advocacy services for clients before the Executive Office for Immigration Review, Immigration Customs Enforcement, and the Office of Refugee and Resettlement
• Provide professional development of legal staff
• Assist with the Battered Immigrant Women Project (Violence Against Women Act), especially more difficult cases
• Collaborating with other immigration agencies and service providers
Qualifications:
• Have at least two years of experience representing low-income clients in the practice of general immigration law, handled asylum cases and be admitted to a state Bar
• Have a broad knowledge of family-based and removal cases
• Knowledge and experience with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)
• Have excellent writing, editing, legal analysis, and oral presentation skills
• Be highly organized, flexible, reliable, dependable and independent worker who is able to juggle several projects at once
• Be able to work in a team-based, collaborative, decision-making environment
• Must have strong interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills
• Demonstrate and provide evidence of commitment to public interest legal work with, but not limited to, clerkships and other prior work experience
• Fluency in Spanish
• Two-year minimum commitment required
It is a plus if the applicant is licensed in Texas.
Salary/Benefits: Pay commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits, including health and vacation.
Applications: This position will remain open until filled. We will consider applications on an ongoing basis beginning immediately. Interviewing will begin after the Jan. 2, 2008. To ensure consideration of your application, please submit by postal mail a cover letter explaining your qualifications, a résumé, a writing sample, and the names of three references to:
Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center
Attn: Raymundo Elí Rojas
1500 E. Yandell Dr.
El Paso, Texas 79902
To submit by email, paste a copy your cover letter into the text of the email and attached the following: copy of your cover letter, a résumé, a writing sample, and the names of three references. Write Las Americas Managing Attorney Position in the subject line. Then send to rayerojas@las-americas.org.
For more information, call 915-544-5126, ext. 22 or email rayerojas@las-americas.org
bh