“Immigration law is one of the most complex, baroque and outdated areas of American law. I’ve heard it compared to tax law,”
08/14/24
On my first day as a summer intern at Open Immigration, I was greeted by founding attorney Bonita Gutierrez, who walked me to our office. As our high heels clacked down the hall on the way to suite 416, we chatted about the office and its occupants: all women. Three months later, I have come to learn that this is partially reflective of the field-wide female majority in immigration law. According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), women account for only 38% of lawyers in the United States. AILA membership, however, is estimated to be about 61% female. Furthermore, 67% of nonprofit attorneys in California are female.
This piece will focus mainly on contrasting the experiences of male and female lawyers; less than one percent of American lawyers are non-binary, and there is not enough data at the moment to make accurate conclusions about what areas of law these individuals fall into and how gender plays a role in their careers.
Law, like many fields, tends to fall along gendered lines. “More of my male classmates in law school were interested in pursuing careers in corporate law as in-house counsel or financial-related transactional jobs. More women were interested in working in humanitarian fields. Not to say that all of them ended up doing that, but that was the most clear way that I saw gender dynamics show up,” said Talia Lepson, the current associate at Open Immigration. Talia graduated from law school in May of 2022 and has worked in public interest-related positions ever since.
Caitlin Cummings, an incoming 2L at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, shares similar sentiments. Caitlin is currently working at the Post-Conviction Justice Project legal clinic.
Caitlin is an aspiring labor and employment litigator, a career she describes as “going off of just my own biases, pretty traditionally male.” She associates this line of work with “people who like to win and are driven by high-risk-high-reward situations,” both traits stereotypically celebrated in men. However, it appears that more and more driven women such as Caitlin are gravitating towards this field. Around 60% of students at USC Gould are female, and Caitlin has observed relatively equal amounts of male and female classmates interested in pursuing big law.
Caitlin noted that while more of her fellow female law students are exploring stereotypically masculine areas in law, the opposite trend has not been observed in areas of law more commonly associated with women. “There is this funneling of women into public interest because it is seen as more of an empathetic profession. There are some men too, but it is definitely mostly women,” Caitlin said.
Caitlin and Talia do not stand alone in this experience, and the phenomenon these women observed in law school continues well after earning one’s JD.
The gender dynamics in law predictably reflect the ways that men and women are socialized. Starting in childhood, women are rewarded for caring, service-oriented qualities. As such, it makes sense that a largely humanitarian field such as immigration law would have such a visible gender imbalance. “I think there's a huge family element to immigration law—I don't know if that's a gender thing. Women are often raised to be caretakers,” said Katie Annand, an immigration lawyer who focuses on Special Immigrant Juvenile Visas.
Our lived experience shapes how we navigate our careers, and patterns in who chooses certain areas of interest can shape how a field operates.
Immigration law comes with significant secondhand trauma, and it takes a certain level of comfort and vulnerability to share that experience with anyone, let alone colleagues. Yet, Katie and Talia both pointed out a beautiful openness in immigration law that they both credit to the high quantity of women in the field. “I can share with a colleague that I am increasingly irritable because of my burnout or that I am not able to sleep because I'm stressed about work. I think that could be something that women are contributing to this field,” said Katie.
A strong sense of community comes with being a woman in immigration law. This openness and compassion allow advocates to avoid burnout and, in turn, show up better for their clients. “I think more of us can stay in the work longer if we don't feel so alone in the way that that trauma affects us. That community creates more safety nets and can help people who are having a hard time staying in the field,” said Katie.
This comradery is especially important in the context of secondhand trauma, but I have been lucky to witness the collaborative and caring nature of this field in countless big and small ways. These women show each other deep and genuine care that goes beyond simple professional politeness; I can tell that they genuinely want each other to succeed.
I loved the work that I have had the privilege of engaging with this summer and am so inspired by the fierce advocates I have been lucky enough to see in action. Furthermore, these incredible women have shown me immense kindness in the last three months; thanks to their invaluable compassion, mentorship, and support, they have made me feel as though I truly could have a place in this field one day.
From August 5-11, 2018, I went to Harlingen, TX in the Rio Grande Valley, where I volunteered legal services to parents held inside a detention facility operated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). There, I met parents who were separated from their children. All fled targeted violence in their home countries and seek asylum here. Many parents there have been detained since May and ICE told them they would be reunited with their children. Some parents were even given back their clothing and told they were being processed for release only to find themselves locked in a room with no phones for days - over a week sometimes - only to be put back into handcuffs and re-booked back into the detention facility without explanation. And still no reunification with their kids.
Despite the crippling anxiety this process inflicts on them, I am touched by the stoic words from parents about their anxiety over what will happen to them or their children. Some children are still alone in immigration custody, many many miles from their parents.
One woman told me she feels like immigration took a piece of her away when authorities separated her from her 3-year old daughter. As far as she knows, her 3-year old is alone right now in immigration custody, hours away from her mother.
A father who was separated from his two children tells me that his kids were released to their mother in Maryland and they call the detention center frequently. They cry on the phone, asking him why he still has not been able to reunite with them. He doesn't know the answer himself. He says that an Immigration Judge at the detention facility told him that asylum will not save him even though he fled extreme violence and assassination attempts in his native country.
The hardest part for me, is the feeling of uncertainty. In these unprecedented times, it's often impossible for attorneys to advise people about what will happen to them or their children.