Two-year Community Fellowships are awarded to recent college graduates with the linguistic skills, passion, and cultural competency to work with diverse immigrant communities.

Community Fellows become partially accredited representatives through the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Access Programs, allowing them to represent clients in legal matters before the Department of Homeland Security. They are placed in community-based organizations mostly in and around New York City as well as in other states. IJC Fellows are provided a full salary and benefits.

Community Fellows spend most days meeting with clients, conducting legal screenings and completing applications for immigration benefits. Throughout the fellowship, Community Fellows carry their own caseloads and provide a broad range of representation, with the type of assistance depending on their host organization.

Some of our Community Fellows are “in-placed” which means that they are employees of IJC and work in-house at IJC’s headquarters in New York City. Other Community Fellows are “out-placed” which means they become employees of their host organizations and receive supervision directly from legal staff at their host organizations.

Immigrant Justice Corps seeks Fellows who are smart, compassionate, and passionate about justice for immigrants. Fellows must be dedicated to the idea of a fellowship program – you give us two years of hard work and we will make sure you are immersed in immigration law and prepared to help immigrants who otherwise cannot afford quality representation. Almost all IJC Fellows are fluent in at least two languages, including English.

Applicants may currently be enrolled in an undergraduate degree, so long as they will be graduating by the Spring of the Fellowship start year. 

Applicants may have graduated from college no more than two years prior to the start of the Fellowship. 

Community Fellow Application Components: There is an online application for Community Fellows. Applicants must submit a resume, transcript, two letters of recommendation, write a Statement of Interest, and answer an essay question. Selected applicants will be interviewed and selected in the spring.

Many of our Community Fellows become Fellows because they want to go to law school and gain practical experience before doing so. The fellowship is also an excellent way to decide whether a career in law is really your passion. In addition to law school, Community Fellows have gone on to attend other graduate schools and continue working as legal advocates in immigration and other areas of law.

• senior

• US Citizen
• Permanent Resident
• International or Other Visa Status
• Undocumented

• Résumé (no more than two pages)

• PDF of your college transcript (unofficial)

• Letters of Recommendation

• Statement of Interest (500 words or less): Describe why you would like to be an IJC Community Fellow.  Questions to consider in drafting the Statement of Interest include:

  • Why are you interested in immigration law?

  • How might an IJC Fellowship prepare you for the career you want to have in the future?

  • Why, specifically, are you interested in participating in a fellowship program?

  • What skills and experiences have prepared you for work with immigrant communities?

  • What would you like to gain (and give) as a Fellow in our program?

• Essay Question #1 (500 words or less):  The vast majority of a Community Fellow's time is spent navigating complex interpersonal dynamics, whether between clients or colleagues. We are interested in Fellows with a high level of emotional intelligence, who are empathetic, excellent communicators, and able to work in close partnership with clients, IJC staff, and co-fellows. Tell us about a challenging but rewarding experience you have had working with a client/customer or a colleague. Questions to consider: What were the underlying dynamics of the experience and what about those dynamics made the experience so challenging? What did you learn about yourself and your communication style/needs while navigating that experience? How might you apply those lessons forward as a Community Fellow?

• Essay Question #2 (500 words of less): In addition to sharp interpersonal skills, we seek fellows who are analytically agile, able to translate complex doctrine and policy into plain language, and whose beliefs are in alignment with IJC's mission and theory of change. As such, we ask you to tell us about your perspective on immigration policy in the U.S. through a response to the following : If you were able to redesign the entire U.S. immigration system or a specific part of it, what would you do and why?

More info is posted here: https://justicecorps.org/faqs-community-fellowship/ 

Immigrant Justice Corps (“IJC”), is the nation’s first and only immigration legal fellowship program. IJC seeks to expand access to counsel by increasing the quantity of immigration lawyers and the quality of the immigration bar. Each year IJC recruits talented young lawyers (“Justice Fellows”) and college graduates (“Community Fellows”) many of whom are first-generation immigrants and bi-lingual graduates from the country’s top universities, for a two-year fellowship.  IJC trains Fellows to be experts in immigration law and pairs them with leading non-profit legal services providers and community based organizations around the country to provide legal services to low income immigrants.

The Fellows provide a broad range of immigration services including deportation defense, applications for asylum, naturalization, green cards and other forms of relief available to juveniles and victims of crime, domestic violence or human trafficking.  Quality legal assistance allows immigrants to avoid deportation and separation of families.  Immigrants who can improve their legal status are better able to gain lawful employment, receive financial aid to college, access health care and live stable, productive lives in the United States.

IJC is infusing the legal profession with a new generation of lawyers and advocates committed to providing high quality representation and innovative thinking about the delivery of legal services to a vulnerable population, including the use of new technologies.

Questions/Help: fellowship@justicecorps.org