South Texas College of Law Houston Student, Former Undocumented Immigrant Receives ‘Law Student Pro Bono Award’
Maria Ivanez, left, and South Texas College of Law Houston President and Dean Donald J. Guter celebrate her recognition as the Texas Access to Justice (ATJ) Commission’s 2016 “Law Student Pro Bono Award” recipient at the State Bar of Texas’ recent New Lawyer Induction Ceremony in Austin. Photo courtesy of Texas Lawyer
The Texas Lawyer reports on this pupbeat immigration story. When she was a kid, law student Maria Ivañez was afraid of deportation. Her family moved from Venezuela when Ivañez was a child, and for ten years, she lived as an undocumented immigrant. When it came time to graduate from high school, she needed her legal status to qualify for in-state college tuition at the University of Houston.
Then 18, Ivañez filed her immigration case alone because she could not afford a lawyer. As a law student at South Texas College of Law Houston, where she graduated this month, she made sure that other undocumented children would not go through that without representation.
Ivañez recently received the Law Student Pro Bono Award and a $2,000 stipend from the Texas Access to Justice Commission for her dedication and commitment to pro bono services for low-income and underserved people.
She took a course that required her to work in the school’s Immigration Clinic, and then kept volunteering after her class ended.
KJ