Matthew Caponi
Refugee Services of Texas
Austin, TX
What type of work did you do at RST?
RST’s Immigration department does offensive (as opposed to defensive), transactional immigration work, primarily focusing on assisting refugees and asylees file for Legal Permanent Resident status, helping Legal Permanent Residents file for Naturalization, assisting petitions on behalf of family members residing abroad, helping clients file for Employment Authorization documents, and additional similar petitions. My work consisted of assisting the attorneys and assistants on active cases, ranging from researching the availability of medical, legal, and social services in a Central American client’s home country for use in a T-visa application, to screening potential Naturalization applicants for eligibility, to completing and filing Applications for Naturalization with those clients.
Immigration issues have been hot topics this summer. Did media presence or other activity affect your work this summer?
My supervisor and our office’s Area Director, along with a client of another department of the RST office, were interviewed for local news reports on multiple occasions, but this did not affect my work at all.
It did feel strange–exhilarating, frustrating–to be working essentially adjacent to, but still distinct from, the major national media story of this summer (family separation), but other immigration developments directly impacted my work or my clients. The Department of Justice rescinded guidance on refugee and asylum seekers’ right to work in the United States, which prompted many internal discussions on how to advise clients and talk to employers and potential employers throughout various RST programs. In general, this summer felt like a renewed effort by the various immigration and law enforcement apparatuses of the federal government to redefine the collective understanding of citizenship and immigration, which weighed heavily on and contrasted starkly with my day-to-day life of filing citizenship applications and pushing forward Green Card applications for people who represented a different version of and vision for American citizenship and immigration.
What advice might you give a UT Law student considering an internship in immigration law?
Learn Spanish. Arabic is useful too, as well as French for a number of African populations. My Spanish is rudimentary, which limited how much I was able to accomplish alone on certain matters. You will almost certainly need to be at least bilingual to be truly useful in this field (I plan to brush up on my Spanish this next year), though you can make it work if you are creative. My supervising attorney did not speak Spanish (though both of the legal assistants did, and she did speak Farsi).
What was the most memorable experience from your summer?
RST’s immigration team underwent serious transition and turnover this summer, resulting in a two-day period in which I was the sole member of the immigration team, before the new legal assistant started. It was a frantic two days but also invigorating and productive, as I tried to keep the ship upright and our active cases progressing forward. I spent more of my time than before following up and meeting with clients directly. Their stories were varied but universally heart-wrenching, jaw-dropping, and inspiring. Calling clients to inform them that their Naturalization application had been approved, or their Green Card had arrived at our office, never got old!
How did a TLF stipend assist you in your summer internship?
It made it possible in the first place. I worked for course credit and pro bono hours last summer (I received my internship offer late in the semester, after most fellowship and stipend deadlines had passed). I was able to swing an unpaid summer once, but I did not have two unpaid summers in a row in the budget.