In a story from the San Francisco Chronicle today, an unusual result came out of the immigration law world – in an arena where flexibility can be rare, a family got an extension on their deportation proceedings. This case highlights an interesting intersection between two worlds which often report zero-tolerance policies: immigration and school security. The case of the Washingtons was brought to the attention of immigration officials because their 13 year old son was in a fight at school and stole 46 cents from another boy. While in the past, issues like this were dealt with through school disciplinary hearings (the boy likely would have been suspended for a few days and faced an extended bout of detention), now schools are increasingly partnered with the criminal justice system. So in this story, the 13 year old was charged with felony offenses of robbery, assault, and extortion, which mandated reporting to immigration.

So far the Washingtons have avoided the potential extreme consequences of these actions, but many other families are not so lucky and can face permanent deportation for actions which in the past would never have been in the bailiwick of the criminal justice system.

Have you considered a clerkship in a tribal court? The National Tribal Court Law Clerk Program [Ed. Note – the link is currently not working, we’ll update it just as soon as we can] was just launched by University of Colorado Law School, the National Native American Law Students Association, and the National American Indian Court Judges Association. The site is trying to facilitate the summer internship process for tribal courts, and the number of internships should continue to grow.

Equal Justice Works conducts a webinar series on student debt relief, and they’ve scheduled a new one on Public Service Loan Forgiveness for next Tuesday, March 9 at noon EST. You can read more about the webinar and sign up on the EJW site, as well as check out all their other student debt resources (including old webinar recordings).

The federal government has been using the same measure of poverty since the 1960s.  Much has changed since then, though, in terms of the living expenses and financial obligations of individuals and families.  As a consequence, a change in how we determine the number of people in poverty has been long overdue.  One of the reasons it has not come is because most experts believe that a more accurate measure will shine a light on more people in poverty, making for bad politics for whomever may be in power. 

The Washington Post reports this morning that the Obama Administration is taking a signficant – not a complete, but a signficant – step toward a more accurate poverty measure.  The Commerce Department will use a new formula in tandem with the old one as a sort of supplement to the data collected by the old formula.

While they are adopting a second formula, administration officials are largely sidestepping that political minefield by deciding to retain the old one as the basis for the official federal poverty line – the threshold underlying eligibility rules for assistance programs.

This new formula will be used for the first time in producing the 2010 Census report.  Lawyers and law students who advocate for clients in poverty will never be short on work, unfortunately.  But a more accurate measure of poverty will go a long way toward addressing it systemically.

A side note on the old poverty measure: Dorks people who watched the West Wing may remember the episode wherein Robe Lowe’s character mentioned Mollie Orshansky, a/k/a Ms. Poverty, who crafted the 1960s poverty thresholds.  Here’s some more information on Ms. Orshanky and the process by which she developed the thresholds, courtesy of her former employer, the Social Security Administration.  Her life story is fascinating.  The daughter of poor Ukrainian immigrant parents, Ms. Orshansky was the first in her family to attend college and went on to a distinguished career in federal service – focusing on issues of economic security for families.

We blogged earlier about the state of Connecticut taking steps to prevent renters from being wrongfully evicted when their landlords are foreclosed upon. Yesterday, Emily Savner of the Brennan Center for Justice contributed a guest post on the Congress Blog over at The Hill making the argument that the reauthorization and expanded funding of the Legal Services Corporation (which we talked about as well) is critical to ensure that there are sufficient affordable lawyers to assist tenants facing improper eviction. Even as more states step up like Connecticut, the majority of tenants facing eviction will require legal assistance to keep their apartments as long as they legally can. Additionally, the reauthorization statute would change some outdated rules, including one that prevents legal aid clients from participating in class action cases, which could be particularly powerful in getting banks, developers, and landlords to follow state and federal law.

We will keep you updated on the progress of the bill, called the Civil Access to Justice Act, as it makes its way through Congress.

If you’ve ever thought that comparative law class you took would never come up in the real world, take a look at this article from the New York Times detailing an Italian court ruling against Google for privacy violations. The article does a great job explaining the differences in emphasis on freedom of speech versus right to privacy in the United States and Europe, and the conflict between different legal priorities in the “borderless” world of today’s internet.