Legal Triage: Chicago-Kent Students Get Real-World Immigration Law Training

“It’s not something you can necessarily prepare for,” says Gaby Treviño-Gutiérrez ’26. “It’s like legal triage, in a sense.”

In May 2025, Treviño-Gutiérrez and four other Chicago-Kent College of Law students travelled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to assist the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center in representing people who were detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Chicago-Kent’s Immigration Law Society sent students on trips to the United States/Mexico border annually to gain hands-on experience in immigration law. 

Treviño-Gutiérrez’s group, however, was the first to make the trek since 2019.

Micah Villanueva ’26 is president of the Immigration Law Society. He and last year’s president, Jocelyn Rodriguez ’26, put in the legwork to make it happen.

“When we met at the beginning of last year, it was our #1 priority, that we’re going to make this trip happen,” Villanueva says. “Come hell or high water, we’re going to make it happen.”

While the pandemic may have forced the cancelation of the 2020 trip, by 2024 the problem was a lack of funding. Villanueva led the effort to raise the funds needed for the trip.

“This trip was mostly funded by alumni donations for this specific purpose, sending students down to the southern border,” he says. “Then we did some bake sales, we did some merchandise sales.”

Funding was secured about six weeks before the students were supposed to leave, setting off a mad scramble to secure travel and hotel arrangements.

Five Chicago-Kent students assisted clients during the trip by putting together their pro se packets, or the resources they will be able to use to represent themselves in court.

“There are six pro-bono attorneys in the state of New Mexico that can do this kind of work of representing detained individuals,”  says Treviño-Gutiérrez. “Obviously, there are thousands of people in detention, so a lot of people are having to represent themselves.”

Treviño-Gutiérrez served two clients, one of whom was seeking asylum in the U.S. because he was gay  and claimed that he would face persecution based on his sexual orientation if he were to return to his home country. Treviño-Gutiérrez helped by researching and showcasing the conditions for LGBTQ people in her client’s home country and compiled it for her client’s use.
Twice, the students visited detention facilities, which Treviño-Gutiérrez says was the hardest part of the trip.

“You hear stories and you read about what is happening at all of these detention facilities, how sensationalized they are, and the horrible rhetoric attached to the people who are detained in these facilities, ” Treviño-Gutiérrez says. “But seeing it firsthand, it really just kind of invigorated me to try and help clients to get out of there as much as I can.”

Despite how difficult the emotional work was, Treviño-Gutiérrez was glad that her first experience with it was in a supportive, educational setting. She knows that once she’s a practicing attorney, she’ll be prepared to hit the ground running to help her clients.

“I was grateful for the institutional support and institutional backing from the attorneys at NMILC because it was heavy, and it was also really important the ways that we were able to help people and get experience in what an attorney does day to day in that kind of situation,”  says Treviño-Gutiérrez. “This work is so important, and not enough people are doing it. As of May 2024, only about 29 percent of immigrants in removal proceedings were able to secure representation” 

Villanueva says he is dedicated to building on this year’s foundation and ensuring that this kind of real-world opportunity continues to exist for Chicago-Kent students. The Immigration Law Society’s Border Trip Committee plans to send another eight students in 2026, and this time, maybe he’ll be one of them.

“At Chicago-Kent, students are really passionate about social justice, particularly with regards to immigration,” Villanueva says. “There’s definitely a gap of knowledge as far as what’s actually happening at the southern border, where most of our migration is coming from. Experiencing it firsthand helps students to understand it, and gives them a perspective that makes them a better advocate, both at their work and as an advocate for those who are immigrating to the United States.”

The Immigration Law Society is accepting donations for the 2026 trip. You can contribute on the Chicago-Kent Giving page. Select ‘Other’ in the dropdown box and type “Immigration Law Society Border Trip” in the comments section.

Photos: Gaby Treviño-Gutiérrez ’26 and Micah Villanueva '26 [provided]