Stanford Human Rights Clinic participates in Supreme Court deportation case

In a year in which new legislation reignited the debate over immigration, students at the Stanford Human Rights Clinic participated in a Supreme Court victory that allows immigrants to challenge deportation based on a single felony drug conviction.

Like other such clinics around the country, Stanford's two-year- old Human Rights clinic not only teaches law students the ins and outs of immigration cases, but allows them to perform actual pro- bono work on behalf of immigrants.

In December, the clinic was integral in the case of a South Dakota man who was deported to Mexico after pleading guilty to aiding in the possession of cocaine. Jose Antonio Lopez, the owner of a Sioux Falls grocery store, was imprisoned for 15 months and then deported to Mexico early last year. Under state law, Lopez, a permanent resident who had lived in the U.S. for 16 years, had committed a felony. However, Lopez was a first-time offender, making his crime a misdemeanor under the Federal Controlled Substances Act.