{"id":181694,"date":"2023-08-15T08:49:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T18:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=181694"},"modified":"2023-08-15T08:49:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T18:49:19","slug":"law-fellowship-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2023\/08\/15\/law-fellowship-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"Law fellowship to assist non-citizen military, veterans with immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"man<\/p>\n

To help non-citizen military members and veterans go through the immigration and legal process, a recent graduate of the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law<\/a> was awarded a national fellowship<\/a> through Equal Justice Works Design-Your-Own Fellowship.<\/p>\n

\"army
Danicole Ramos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Danicole Ramos will use his fellowship to assist non-citizen military members and veterans through deportation defense, naturalization or family reunification. He is only the third person in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> to ever receive this fellowship.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m really grateful that I had a funder who believed in the proposal I had and wanted to support it,” said Ramos. “My project focuses on doing outreach and providing legal services to those military members and veterans who are not U.S. citizens but have served the country and are living in Â鶹´«Ã½.<\/span>”<\/p>\n

Foreign-born residents comprise nearly a quarter of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s population and include an estimated 40,000 undocumented residents and 106,000 veterans. Yet, only eight lawyers statewide provide free or low-cost immigration legal services to immigrant communities.<\/p>\n

“We don\u2019t know the exact number here in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>,” said Ramos. “That is something I hope to address with my project. The veteran and immigrant population we have here provides an opportunity for this kind of work we\u2019re doing to find out who this community is and how we can support them.”<\/p>\n

Connection to community<\/h2>\n

\"group<\/p>\n

The immigrant community is one that Ramos resonates with as it reminded him of his own Filipino family and church community. The connection he felt was an integral part of his decision to go to the UH<\/abbr> law school, in hopes of being able to help people through the immigration process.<\/p>\n

“Danicole\u2019s family\u2019s immigration history to the North Shore, his service in the Air National Guard, and his legal training at the William S. Richardson School of Law all combine to make him the perfect person to meet the unmet need for immigration legal services for immigrant veterans in Â鶹´«Ã½,<\/span>” said Esther Yoo, director of the UH<\/abbr> Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic<\/a><\/p>\n

Through his time working in the UH<\/abbr> Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic, Ramos, who currently serves in the U.S. military, encountered many clients who were veterans but not naturalized and who were unaware of the available opportunities for them.<\/p>\n

“My interest in immigration law and with my experience serving in the military, I thought working on this issue would be a perfect fit for my skillset and the experiences that I\u2019ve had,” said Ramos. “I think from a macro level it is a good place to do immigration work. Working with this community changes the narrative of what we think it means to be a patriot and what it means to be an American.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To help non-citizen military members and veterans go through the immigration and legal process, a UH<\/abbr> law school graduate was awarded a national fellowship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[90,679,154,9,68],"class_list":["post-181694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-alumni","tag-alumni-recognition","tag-law","tag-uh-manoa","tag-william-s-richardson-school-of-law","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181694"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181886,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181694\/revisions\/181886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}