My name is Gaby Treviño, and I’m a 1L from Arkansas. I became interested in immigration law through community organizing and efforts to put an end to local law enforcement’s collaboration with ICE. After about a year of organizing, the sheriff in my home county did not renew the Memorandum of Agreement with ICE, which means that undocumented migrants detained in jail run a lower risk of being transferred to an ICE detention center (though unfortunately, the risk is not entirely eliminated).

One of my favorite books is called Scratching Out a Living, by Angela Steusse. The book explores the recruitment of Latino migrants during the 90s to work in poultry plants in the South alongside Black and white Americans, and how their legal status makes them particularly vulnerable to workplace exploitation. It talks about the industry’s growing reliance on migrant labor.