Areas of Expertise

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) immigration attorneys’ expertise focuses on family-based immigration, humanitarian relief, naturalization and citizenship, immigration enforcement, and removal defense.

Since 1979 we have helped expand the immigration expertise of attorneys, nonprofit staff, criminal defenders, and others assisting immigrant clients.

In addition to authoring the ILRC’s practice manuals, our expert attorneys have been published by Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB), American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), ILW.com, Huffington Post, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, Center for Law and Social Policy, The Hill, LexisNexis Emerging Issues, and Fox News Latino.
 
We have also provided training to National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), American Bar Association Commission on Immigration, Federal Bar Association, The State Bar of California, Legal Aid Association of California, Judicial Council of California and more.

Eric Cohen

Eric Cohen, Executive Director

Eric Cohen has been with the ILRC since 1988, and has been its Executive Director since 2007. He has extensive experience training attorneys, paralegals, community advocates, and organizers on a variety of immigration law, immigrants’ rights, and leadership development topics. Eric is a national expert on naturalization and citizenship law and is the primary author of the ILRC’s manual entitled, Naturalization and U.S. Citizenship: The Essential Legal Guide. Eric helped develop ILRC's community model for naturalization workshops.

Immigration Relief Toolkit for Criminal Defenders
Crimes
Post-Conviction Relief
Removal Defense
Many noncitizen defendants are already deportable (“removable”). This includes all undocumented people, as well as lawful permanent residents (green card-holders) who have become deportable because of a conviction. If immigration authorities find these people – which is likely to happen – they will be deported unless they are granted some kind of immigration relief.   For these defendants, staying eligible to apply for immigration relief is their most important immigration goal, and may be their highest priority in the criminal defense.

Post-Conviction Relief in California Should Be Unaffected by Chaidez v. United States
Crimes
In Chaidez v. United States, 568 U.S. _____, ____S.Ct.____, 2013 WL 610201, (February 20, 2013) the U.S. Supreme Court held that Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010) was a “new rule” that did not apply retroactively to convictions final before March 31, 2010. In Padilla, the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires criminal defense counsel to advise a noncitizen about the immigration consequences of a guilty plea.

Lessons Learned from Amnesty in 1986
Policy Advocacy
"The Immigration and Naturalization Service, Community-based Organizations, and the Legalization Experience: Lessons for the Self-Help Immigration Phenomenon,” is a law review article written by ILRC’s founder, Bill Hing, in which he discusses lessons learned from the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.