Our final extern welcome this summer is for Sam Becker!
Sam is a rising 3L at Stanford Law School, where they are Co-Leader of the Immigration Pro Bono Project; Co-President of the Stanford Advocates for Immigrants’ Rights; Advocacy Chair for the Disability and Mental Health Network; and a Public Interest Fellow. Sam will be joining Disability Law United to support work on the Immigration Detention Accountability Project and on protecting the rights of protestors.
In Spring 2021, Sam worked with the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Stanford to represent an asylum-seeking client and to advocate for better access to counsel for individuals in detention. Previously, they worked with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project in their Detention and Deportation Defense office and the National Origin & Immigrant Rights and Racial Economic Justice programs of Legal Aid at Work. At Stanford, Sam conducts research for Professors Lucas Guttentag’s Immigration Policy Tracking Project and previously conducted research for Professor (and Disability Law United Board member) Rabia Belt and Professor Jayashri Srikantiah.
Prior to law school, Sam was a Denver resident and elementary school teacher. After graduating law school, they plan to return to Denver to clerk for the Honorable Monica M. Márquez on the Colorado Supreme Court.
Sam says, “I left Denver to attend law school with the intention of working at the intersection of immigrants’ rights and disability rights. Because the advocates at Disability Law United are experts in these fields, I could not be more honored to support their work this summer!” Sam thanks the John Paul Stevens Fellowship Foundation for funding their time at Disability Law United.
Sam is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Mandarin Chinese. They love young adult fiction and their two cats, Luna and Lynx.