CAMDEN — Gaining citizenship in the United States can sometimes be an arduous process for immigrants, but the Rutgers School of Law–Camden is working to help legal permanent residents fulfill that goal.
On Oct. 29, professional attorneys and Rutgers–Camden law students are providing free and confidential citizenship application assistance to those looking to become U.S. citizens during Citizenship Rutgers–Camden. The event is being held during 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Multi-Purpose Room on the main level of the Campus Center on the Rutgers–Camden campus.
While approximately half of New Jersey’s 1.7 million immigrant residents have already become U.S. citizens, there are about 400,000 who have not.
“This is an opportunity for Rutgers to take the lead in providing a free legal service to the community,” says Joanne Gottesman, a clinical professor of law at the Rutgers School of Law–Camden. “The project is targeting the population of lawful permanent residents and helping them to become citizens.”
Citizenship Rutgers–Camden builds on the pilot event held at Rutgers–New Brunswick through the Eagleton Institute of Politics’ Program on Immigration and Democracy by leveraging relationships with anchor community institutions, including area medical centers, faith-based organizations, and non-profit organizations to further engage residents across the Camden community who need citizenship application assistance.
“The citizenship application process can be a little daunting for people who aren’t familiar with it,” Gottesman says. “This is a chance for them to speak with someone who has knowledge about the process and to be guided through that process.”
To participate in Citizenship Rutgers, eligible participants must be at least 18 years old and have been legal permanent residents for at least five years. Registration is required. To register, call (732) 932-9384 or visit www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/Citizenship.php.
Immigration is just one of a number of human rights issues for which the Rutgers School of Law–Camden has become internationally known. Rutgers–Camden continues a longstanding commitment of providing critical civil services in human rights fields. The Rutgers–Camden law faculty includes globally-recognized human rights scholars committed to carrying out those goals.
(from left to right): Beth Stephens, Joanne Gottesman, Roger Clark, and Linda Bosniak are recognized around the world for their expertise on matters of human rights.
Roger Clark, a Board of Governors professor of law, is an internationally regarded expert on human rights and criminal law. He has served on the United Nations Committee on Crime Prevention and Control. In 1995, Clark appeared before the International Court of Justice at The Hague, where he argued on behalf of the Pacific nation of Samoa that nuclear weapons should be outlawed.
Clark is the author of more than 10 books, including Understanding International Criminal Law (LexisNexis, Newark, 2nd ed., 2008) and serves on the editorial boards of various publications. He is a board member of several international non-governmental organizations, such as the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy in Vancouver and the International League for Human Rights, headquartered in New York.
Beth Stephens, a professor of law, has examined issues related to human rights litigation in U.S. courts on behalf of victims of human rights abuses in other countries, and she has litigated at various levels of the U.S. judicial system. In 2010, Stephens sat as a litigant before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Samantar v. Yousuf, which involved a claim of torture and other human rights abuses against the former defense minister of Somalia.
Stephens is the author of a variety of articles on the relationship between international and domestic law, focusing on the enforcement of international human rights norms through domestic courts. From 1990-95, she was in charge of the international human rights docket at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, where she litigated a series of cases addressing human rights violations in countries around the world.
Linda Bosniak, a distinguished professor of law, is a leading expert on issues of immigration, citizenship, nationalism and transnationalism, and constitutional equality, and has published extensively in these areas. Her book, The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership (Princeton University Press, 2006) has been widely read and reviewed.
Bosniak has served on the executive committee of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Immigration Law and co-authored a report of The Constitution Project on Rights of Immigrants After 9/11. She has participated in various law reform panels on immigration and citizenship.
Joanne Gottesman co-directs the Rutgers–Camden Civil Practice Clinic, a student-staffed office that represents low-income Camden residents in a range of legal matters. Her research focuses on the intersection between immigration and criminal law.
With the support of the Defending Immigrants Partnership, Gottesman has written “The Immigration Consequences of Selected New Jersey Criminal Offenses,” a practice guide for criminal defense attorneys who represent noncitizens in New Jersey to help them determine the immigration consequences of potential pleas.
Media Contact: Ed Moorhouse
(856) 225-6759
E-mail: ejmoor@camden.rutgers.edu
