October 25, 2024
Central West Justice Center Fellows to Help Youth Farmworkers and Immigrants
Central West Justice Center (CWJC) welcomed two Fellows to its team of advocates this fall: Ben Rodgers and Caroline Abramovici. Both will engage in projects that assist some of the most vulnerable members of our communities, youth farmworkers and immigrants.
Ben Rodgers, a 2024 graduate of Yale Law School, was selected for a Skadden Fellowship. He joins CWJC’s Seasonal & Farmworker Unit and will provide legal assistance to migrant child workers with immigration, employment and family law needs. He will also collaborate with local nonprofit community organizations to provide empowering educational programs.
Ben said, “Across the U.S., including in Massachusetts, thousands of migrant children work long hours, often in dangerous and taxing jobs, while navigating the immigration court system, often without the assistance of counsel. I grew up in a rural community in a working poor family, and helping children find stability, security and empowerment is deeply meaningful for me.”
Caroline Abramovici joins CWJC’s Immigration Unit as an Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow. As the daughter of two immigrants, she saw how difficult the immigration process could be, and wanted to become an attorney to help people navigate the overwhelming world of immigration law. While in law school at Emory University School of Law, she also interned at non-profit organizations that help new immigrants. Caroline will primarily be advocating for unaccompanied migrant children in their immigration court proceedings.
Ben and Caroline will serve as Fellows at CWJC for two years, providing high-quality legal services to low-income immigrants and farmworkers in our region.
“CWJC is thrilled to host Ben and Caroline and welcomes their skills to assist vulnerable, low-income youth in our region.” said Kristen Williams, Director of Central West Justice Center. “Ben and Caroline’s work helps CWJC expand its capacity at a time when these services for newly arrived community members are urgently needed.”
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Central West Justice Center (CWJC), an affiliate of Community Legal Aid, provides free civil legal services to the residents of Central and Western Massachusetts. CWJC provides advocacy on a wide range of legal matters relating to humanitarian-based immigration law, housing and homelessness, labor and employment, and access to public benefits. For more information about CWJC and the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Project, please visit www.cwjustice.org.
About the Skadden Fellowship Foundation
Launched in 1988, the Skadden Fellowship Foundation provides two-year Fellowships to recent law school graduates to pursue the practice of public interest law on a full-time basis. The guiding principle is to improve legal services for the poor and encourage economic independence. To date, the Foundation has funded over 900 Fellowships. Ninety percent of former Skadden Fellows remain in public service, and almost all of them continue working on the same issues they addressed in their original Fellowship projects.
About Immigrant Justice Corps
Conceived by the late Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and incubated by the Robin Hood Foundation in 2014, Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC) identifies promising lawyers and advocates passionate about immigration, places them with organizations where they can make the greatest difference, and supports them with training and expert insights as they directly assist immigrants in need. To date, over 250 IJC Fellows have supported more than 100,000 low-income immigrants and their families.