Opening – Spring 2025 Extern – Litigation & Advocacy Program

Opening – Spring 2025 Extern – Litigation & Advocacy Program

Location: Florida

About Americans for Immigrant Justice

Americans for Immigrant Justice (AI Justice), an award-winning not-for-profit legal services organization founded in 1996 to protect and promote the basic human rights of immigrants, has a multicultural and a multilingual staff. AI Justice has represented clients from around the world and is recognized as a powerful advocate and national leader for immigrants' rights. AI Justice works closely with traditional civil rights groups as well as grassroots organizations and local, state and national government officials to affect positive change in immigration policies.

About the Litigation & Advocacy Program

AI Justice’s Litigation & Advocacy Program operates under a movement and community lawyering model, serving AI Justice and rest of the immigrant rights movement through strategic impact litigation, policy advocacy, and community protection and education.

The Litigation & Advocacy Program seeks to dismantle the harmful effects of noncitizen immigration status on the lives of people in Florida and eventually across the Deep South with respect to state and local government actions. It is our mission to end the entanglement between state and local governments, on the one hand, and federal immigration enforcement agencies, on the other, so that noncitizens in the South can interact with state and local governments without fear of deportation or detention.

AI Justice’s direct services work with immigrant clients informs its litigation practice in federal and state courts, which shapes and advances policies that protect immigrants nationwide. Following a community / movement lawyering model the Litigation & Advocacy Program will challenge unjust and unconstitutional immigration policies, including the unlawful detention of immigrants, inhumane conditions in ICE detention facilities, the unlawful separation of families at the border, and illegal detention of children in adult facilities. AI Justice’s Litigation team is determined to work to uphold the fundamental rights of immigrants.

Spring 2025 Legal Externship Opportunities for the Litigation Program

Externs will work closely with the Litigation Program’s staff attorneys and Litigation Director to assist with the following:

• Conduct legal research regarding federal and state constitutional questions, immigration law, legislative history, civil rights, administrative issues, and changes in immigration policy;
• Draft memoranda and briefs;
• Analyze and investigate facts for developing cases, including plaintiff outreach;
• All stages of litigation, such as initial pleadings, motion practice, discovery, trial preparation, trial, and appeals;
• Help develop and engage in AI Justice’s Rapid Response Network in response to the incoming administration’s threat of mass raids, detentions, and deportations.
• Centering community in our legal approach by joining coalition meetings;

Qualifications

• Fluency in Spanish or Haitian Creole required
• Currently enrolled at an accredited law school
• Must be willing to submit to an extensive background check, including FBI, statewide repository, and sex offender registry check

To Apply

E-mail your resume and cover letter to careers@aijustice.org and ajhernandez@aijustice.org with the subject line “2025 Litigation Spring Legal Extern.” This position may be hybrid or remote, so long as the extern is located in Florida. Applications will be considered from all classes including 1Ls and will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the positions are filled. There is no monetary compensation, but academic credit may be available depending on the school the student is enrolled at. Those seeking externships must commit to a minimum of 20 hours a week.