By Kara Baskin
law community
A personal mission
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Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
winter 2023
Andrea Marcano expected a transformative legal education at Suffolk Law, but little could have prepared her for the chaotic scene on Martha’s Vineyard in October. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had ordered 50 migrants to be flown to the island from Texas. They were allegedly promised housing and jobs in places such as Washington, DC, and New York, provided they board the flight. What followed was panic, confusion—and a need for volunteer lawyers.
Marcano, Class of 2023, is an intern for immigration attorney Susan Church, JD ’95, who was instrumental in challenging a 2017 executive order from President Trump that banned entry into the United States by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries. Now, a few Republican-led states have begun transporting migrants to states with Democratic leadership—what DeSantis’ office calls “sanctuary states”—to protest illegal immigration. Church’s office has been providing legal advice for the migrants.
For Marcano, the work on Martha’s Vineyard was deeply personal. She grew up in Florida, the child of immigrants from Venezuela, where many of the immigrants arriving on the island also originated. “Seeing [my family] go through the immigration process sparked my interest in immigration law,” she says.
When she reached Edgartown, the county seat of Martha’s Vineyard, she witnessed the panic of many of the migrants, including children, crowded inside St. Andrew’s Church. Many were terrified of deportation. Because of the island detour, they could potentially miss deadlines to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities throughout the country, putting their refugee status at risk.
Offering counsel and soothing nerves
Marcano accompanied the migrants on a bus to a ferry that would shuttle them to a shelter at Joint Base Cape Cod. She offered legal advice and a dose of reassurance, too.
"Many didn’t even want to set foot on the bus unless an attorney was with them,” she says. “They had distrust for the system because of how they were treated in Texas. People were even trying to get off the bus, but we were able to calm them down.”
Marcano matched the migrants to a list of pro bono attorneys who could apprise them of their rights and help them obtain proper visas, which, she says, will allow them to work. Many immigration attorneys involved in the matter are seeking to get their clients a U visa, a legal immigration status for noncitizens who have suffered substantial mental or physical abuse as victims of specific types of criminal activity.
The experience has been intense for a law student, but Marcano says she was prepared thanks to the Suffolk Law Immigration Clinic, where she’s navigating a case with a client from El Salvador seeking asylum. Marcano had studied how to interview vulnerable clients just a week before the Vineyard uproar.
“It’s about sympathizing and understanding that they’ve all gone through hard situations. This is the basis of trauma-informed lawyering,” she says.
After graduation, Marcano plans to use her interpersonal and legal skills to become an immigration attorney, hoping to make a difference during an urgent and challenging time for the field.
"Especially with election years coming up, this is going to be such a prevalent topic,” she says. “We’re all just humans in the end. Immigrants need someone to support them.”
