UVA Clinic Students Win Release for Afghan Client in Complex Immigration Court Case

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Good news from the University of Virginia School of Law:

“With help from students in the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law, an Afghan national who had been imprisoned for three years on a misdemeanor charge was recently freed on bond.

Second-year students Layla Khalid and Jordan Woodlief argued their client’s case at the Arlington Immigration Court and won his release in December.

`From the start, the case was an uphill battle, given that the client had been denied bond on three previous occasions,’ said clinic instructor Sophia Gregg, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Justice Center. The case was further complicated by his asylum appeal, currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

The client had fled Afghanistan to live in Pakistan as a child due to persecution by the Taliban, and later came to the United States on a student visa in 2015 to seek refuge when the persecution continued, Khalid said. In 2018, he was convicted of a misdemeanor simple assault with a 90-day suspended sentence, but was detained by the Department of Homeland Security at the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia for more than three years.”

KJ