Speakers
Hayley Upshaw is a senior staff attorney at Legal Services for Children in San Francisco, California. She is a member of the San Francisco dependency panel and represents primarily immigrant youth in a variety of legal matters including dependency proceedings, probate guardianships and immigration proceedings. Hayley represents youth in removal proceedings before Immigration Court and in seeking humanitarian forms of relief such as Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, asylum, U and T visas, and DACA. Hayley also works with youth in immigration detention, representing unaccompanied youth who are being detained at one of the Office of Refugee Resettlement detention centers in Northern California in their immigration cases and overseeing the provision of know your rights and legal screenings for youth in these immigration detention centers. Hayley conducts outreach at local high schools serving immigrant youth and provides trainings and technical assistance for other attorneys and community groups working with immigrant youth.
Avantika Shastri is the Legal Director for Immigration Programs at BASF and of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative (SFILDC). The SFILDC is a city-funded program of 15 organizations that provide representation to immigrants facing deportation proceedings before the San Francisco Immigration Court. Avantika provides supervision and mentoring to the attorneys at each partner organization and coordinates the group’s collective legal strategy. In addition, Avantika oversees the Attorney of the Day program at the San Francisco Immigration Court and acts as an SFILDC liaison with the San Francisco Immigration Court to coordinate court policy and communications as they relate to the surge dockets.
Prior to her position at BASF, Avantika was in private practice for ten years at Van Der Hout, Brigagliano and Nightingale, in San Francisco, where she represented many individuals and families before the immigration agencies and federal courts. She has been lead counsel and co-counsel for published decisions before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She has also worked with many local and national immigrant rights organizations throughout the years. Avantika received her B.A. and law degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Topic
With the new Administration taking office and new immigration policies being issued, we are witnessing considerable fear and uncertainty among immigrant communities about their rights and legal options. This training will be directed toward legal providers working with children and families in the Juvenile Court system. It will provide an overview of the immigration system including the detention and removal process and new enforcement measures. We will review common forms of immigration relief including Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), U visas for crime victims, T visas for trafficking victims, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Asylum, Family Based Petitions, Cancellation of Removal, VAWA. We will address the role dependency and delinquency attorneys can play in addressing their clients’ immigration needs and in advising and creating safety plans with their immigrant clients.