The Feerick Center for Social Justice at Fordham Law has been selected by the American College of Trial Lawyers as the 2018 Emil Gumpert Award recipient. The Feerick Center is being recognized for providing pro bono legal counsel to asylum-seeking women with children in Dilley, Texas along with its partner, the Dilley Pro Bono Project.
The Feerick Center will receive a $100,000 grant and will be honored during a ceremony on May 9, 2018 at Fordham Law School’s Lincoln Center campus.
Since 2012, more than 100,000 immigrant mothers and children have sought asylum along the southern U.S. border after fleeing violence in their home countries throughout Central America. In response to the growing need for legal aid and counsel, Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice has proposed to collaborate with the Dilley Pro Bono Project, an initiative to enhance and expand access to legal services for asylum-seeking women and their children who are detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center (STFRC) in Dilley, TX.
STFRC is the nation’s largest immigration detention facility with a capacity of 2,400 beds. It currently holds approximately 2,200 mothers and children. Since the private prison opened in December 2014, the Dilley Pro Bono Project estimates that approximately 30,000 asylum-seekers and their children have been detained there.