Legal Clinic Offers Expertise and Lessons for Refugees and Students

a group of students and professors pose as a group in the president's office waiting room — Lawyers Sumangala Bhattacharya, Sharilyn Nakata, and Isabelle Thacker (back, from left) and Claremont Canopy Director Christy Anderson (back, third from right) were joined for a group selfie by students from �鶹ԭ�� and the other Claremont Colleges for a special legal clinic to assist local refugees.

For many refugees, the road to citizenship is long and arduous. But last fall at �鶹ԭ��, a group of refugees found help. The College partnered with Claremont Canopy, a local organization that serves refugee families in the Claremont area, to host a free legal clinic.

professor bhattacharya sits with a student at a laptop computer

A trio of lawyers—Isabelle Thacker, Professor Sumangala Bhattacharya, and Sharilyn Nakata—worked with primarily Syrian families. They also supervised undergraduates from �鶹ԭ�� and the other Claremont Colleges in working on the green card application process and communicating with families.

Isabel thacker works with two students at a table in a office

“There are a number of agencies that do work with low-income people on applications like this, but the lines are long, and immigrants can be preyed on by unscrupulous lawyers,” said Thacker, an immigration rights lawyer who arrived at �鶹ԭ�� in 2023 with husband Strom C. Thacker, the College’s seventh president. “We wanted to create a situation in which they could feel safe and get the help they needed.”