Working with Chicago Volunteer Legal Services (CVLS) and the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), partner Philip Segrest took on the urgent case of a 17-year-old Guatemalan teenager who came to the United States to reunite with his mother, a Chicago resident. The boy had been detained on entry, then released to his mother while his immigration case progressed.
A Guatemalan attorney helped Segrest acquire a notarized signature of consent from the boy’s father, who lived in a remote Guatemalan village without regular phone service. Segrest successfully secured the mother’s custody order before the boy turned 18 three months later. Segrest learned that “there is a huge difference in the likely outcomes of these cases between immigrants who find legal counsel and those who don’t.”