Helping Immigrants Achieve Their Goals, Alvaro Manrique Barrenechea, LLM’19

Alvaro Manrique Barrenechea, LLM’19 – Helping Immigrants Achieve Their GoalsAs a participant of the Vanderbilt Immigration Practice Clinic, I was able to put the knowledge acquired in various courses into practice by helping families and individuals with their immigration issues. Meeting with clients and learning about their stories and legal issues was a reminder of the reason I decided to pursue a legal career.

Undocumented individuals live in constant fear because of their immigration status. Something as simple as driving to pick up children from school could get them in trouble because they can’t obtain a driver’s license. As a staff attorney at Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors, I am proud to be able to solve these issues and allow my clients to live their lives peacefully and achieve their goals.

Most recently, Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors began providing immigration legal relief to the more than 500 Afghan families that were relocated to Middle Tennessee. These families have found themselves in a foreign country, away from their friends and families and with the daunting task of navigating the U.S. immigration system on their own.

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