Awards & Recognition
  • PAIR Executive Director Sarah Ignatius and Robert Hildreth, member of PAIR's Board of Directors, on behalf of the National Immigrant Bond Fund, were selected to receive the Keeper of the American Dream Award by the National Immigration Forum. They will be recognized at the Forum's Keepers of the American Dream event on November 18, 2008, in Washington D.C. Bob serves as Chair of the National Bond Fund Committee, and Sarah is Chair of its Steering Committee. PAIR has joined with several local and national advocates to set up a National Immigrant Bond Fund, which matches bond money raised by family and friends so that individuals detained in ICE raids can return home and have a chance to pursue relief in immigration court. To date, the National Immigrant Bond Fund has directed over $240,000 to immigrants swept up in ICE enforcement actions nationwide. For more information about National Immigrant Bond Fund or to donate online, please visit www.immigrantbondfund.org.
  • PAIR Asylum Attorney Anita Sharma was selected by the Boston Bar Association as a member of its Public Interest Leadership Program (PILP) 2008-2009 class. The leadership training program is for lawyers with fewer than ten years of experience, and fosters the professional relationships that are essential to success. The PILP participants will focus on their own leadership development and personal growth, committing 250 hours to seminars, workshops, and networking opportunities.  They will create their own agenda to help inspire their peers to learn about public service and civic participation, while encouraging all lawyers to participate in these important activities.  They will also address systemic issues involving access to justice and delivery of legal services.
  • PAIR was honored to receive the Daniel Levy Award from the National Immigration Project on November 1, 2007, recognizing PAIR's role in the New Bedford Raids Response Legal Team. This team consists of lawyers and legal workers who responded immediately to the Immigration raid in New Bedford on March 6, 2007, during which Immigration arrested over 360 people, mostly women, and disrupted the lives of an entire community. The National Immigration Project stated in announcing the award, “The collaborative work of the New Bedford Raids Response Legal Team truly demonstrates that to extinguish the flames of injustice in one community requires the collaborative action of all communities”.
  • PAIR has been selected for Pickering Fellowship of WilmerHale, established in June 2007, through which a WilmerHale associate will spend six months each year either at PAIR or at only one other non-profit (Boston Medical Center’s Medical Legal Partnership) as a full-time staff attorney.
  • PAIR client and Board member Edith Fobid was invited to speak at the Boston Bar Foundation John and Abigail Adams Ball in November 2006, where she eloquently told her story of flight from Cameroon where she was imprisoned and tortured due to her support for minority rights of English-speakers in Cameroon. She escaped to the United States and found PAIR, who successfully represented her in immigration court. She is now a hospice worker and has drawn on her own experiences of hardship to establish a deep connection with her patients.
  • The John G. Brooks Public Service Award was presented to PAIR Asylum Attorney Anita Sharma by the Boston Bar Association in October 2006 for her outstanding representation and mentoring, and tireless efforts on behalf of PAIR’s asylum clients.
  • PAIR was presented with the Obunto Award in June 2006 from the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights for PAIR’s “dedicated service to survivors of torture and asylum-seekers, for providing hope to countless individuals and their families, for caring for each individual one at a time”.
  • The New England Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association selected PAIR Asylum Attorney Anita Sharma as Co-Chair of the Liaison Committee on Asylum and former PAIR Detention Attorney Laura Murray Tjan as Co-Chair of the Liaison Committee on Detention in 2006 and 2007.

 

PAIR Programs, Pro Bono Attorneys, Staff and Board Members in the News:

 
   
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