To advocate on behalf of any client, understanding what the client has to say is step one. But what if a client doesn’t speak the language and doesn’t trust the U.S. legal system?
Third-year law student Xiomara Urán served as a Spanish interpreter for the clinical programs during the 2013-2014 academic year and then served as a legal intern in the Immigrant Justice Clinic during the summer and her final year in law school. When clients come to her cautious to convey why they need legal assistance and frightened of their future, "Xio" shares with them her own unfathomable journey.
Originally from Colombia, where her father, Carlos Horacio Urán Rojas, served as an auxiliary magistrate of the Colombian Supreme Court, Xio left her homeland shortly after the 1985 attack against the Palace of Justice, where the Supreme Court had held its hearings. Xio’s father was killed in events resulting from this attack.
Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, which consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices, the Colombian Supreme Court is comprised of 23 magistrates and a president and vice president.
Xio moved permanently to the United States at 15, becoming an American citizen seven years later. Ultimately, she began pursuing a medical degree at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Her professional trajectory changed course in 2006, when she and her family learned that her father and several other Supreme Court justices who perished during or after the attack, were on a government assassination list for rulings on cases against drug dealers and unconstitutional military operations. Further evidence had been found proving the Colombian’s government involvement in the disappearance of her father and numerous other people.
The decision to begin a legal education at Rutgers was fueled by her desire to fight for justice for her father and for justice in the world. “If there’s no justice for a Supreme Court judge in Colombia, how is there hope for the average citizen there?” she asks.
But in November 2013, her father’s case was heard by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Colombian government acknowledged its involvement. In December 2014, the three-decade long case was closed: in a historical decision, the Inter-American Court found the Colombian government guilty for her father’s disappearance, torture and extra-judicial execution. The Court’s decision forced Colombia to publically apologize to her family members, change history books, reform museums within the next two years, and provide future scholarships in her father’s name to graduate students without means.
“Since December the transgressions against my family have ceased substantially. That’s a big deal for me, my family, and for my ability to find peace and closure.” says Xio, who is nearly always with her service dog Nakán, prescribed to help her cope with PTSD incurred from the lifetime of threats and intimidation she experienced.
According to Joanne Gottesman, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Rutgers–Camden, Nakán has also made a positive impact at the law school; the dog has relaxed clients of all ages during stressful situations that are essential to build their cases.
“My clinic students told me about when Nakán and Xio came with them to visit a teenage client in detention. They had to ask the client difficult questions about childhood abuse. Xio sensed how hard it was for the client and let Nakán go off leash to sit with the client, who ended up stroking Nakán in his lap, while telling the painful story of his past that he had been reluctant to tell when first asked,” recalls the Rutgers Law–Camden clinical professor.
During her time as a clinic intern at Rutgers–Camden, Xio was successful in winning an asylum case for a teenage girl from El Salvador. While denials of asylum claims seem to be on the rise, Xio, who worked on this case with fellow 2015 grad Alexi Velez, says obtaining asylum changes your life forever.
“I feel linked to asylum because I too fled from my country. I too feared returning to my country of origin. Had my mother not been highly educated, she would have not been granted the type of visa that allowed us to move to this country as a family. Like my client’s case at the clinic, my family too would seek asylum because of fear of persecution” adds Xio, who was named a 2014 Mary Philbrook Student Honoree because of her work as an intern at the Immigrant Justice Clinic. “It’s important for people like me with a different perspective and a different way of seeing the world, to help those not properly represented in courts because of cultural and language barriers.”
As the state with the fifth-highest immigrant population, the demand for New Jersey to address the legal needs of immigrants is great. South Jersey in particular represents a sizable Latino community in cities like Camden and counties like Salem and Cumberland, where civil legal services providers are scarce. In three years, Xio plans to open her own law firm, dedicated to immigration law, with a special interest in serving the LGBT population.
For now, her mother, uncle, cousin and sister will attend the Rutgers Law–Camden graduation ceremony, celebrating as a family for Xio’s many triumphs. Nakán, too, will be participating in commencement ceremonies with fellow graduates in the Class of 2015.
“It is rewarding to be able to change something small on a big scale of the problems people face,” notes Xio. “It’s rewarding to make a change in their particular lives, changes in their perception of the system, and what they can change in their own future.”