The assistant professor of law and director of Elon Law's Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic writes about helping asylees in the United States reach the "American dream."
An Elon Law professor who has helped hundreds of people pursue asylee status and American citizenship was published in November in a leading law journal focused on social change and justice.
In “A Duty to Protect, But Not to Provide: Bringing the American Dream Within Reach of Asylees in the U.S.,” Elon Law Assistant Professor Heather Scavone responds to another article previously published in the N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change by Lindsay Harris of the University of the District of Columbia.
Harris’ work, Scavone writes, “sheds light on many of the ways that social and federal immigration benefits available to asylees in the U.S. fall short of ensuring that they will be set up for success in the land of the free.”
“Harris’s prescriptions for reform present a thoughtful, attainable framework for improving the asylee integration model in the U.S.,” Scavone writes. “As is the case with many proposals for programmatic and policy reform, the question of how to turn sound recommendations into reality is one of identifying and motivating stakeholders.
Scavone has overseen the Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic, which serves refugees, asylees, asylum seekers, certified victims of trafficking, and Iraqi/Afghani Special Immigrants, since its creation in 2010. The clinic has served more than 1,700 refugees and asylum seekers under Scavone’s leadership, making it one of North Carolina’s most prolific nonprofit immigration legal services providers.
Scavone is an expert on immigration legal issues affecting family reunification benefits for asylees and refugees and has been asked to present at multiple nationwide forums on this subject. She received Elon University’s 2015 Periclean Award for Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility.