This fall, undocumented immigrant students at Cal State Northridge will be able to access free legal help through a law clinic that’s the brainchild of two CSUN students, one of them an undocumented immigrant herself.

When Sevag Alexanian and Kenya Lopez ran together for president and vice president of the student body government last year, one of their ideas was to provide a resource for CSUN students who might need legal aid. They surveyed students about what kinds of legal advice they could use, from dealing with landlord disputes to traffic tickets. Immigration was at the top of the list.

The college of roughly 40,000 students estimates that 1,400 of them are undocumented.

Alexanian said given that number, it wasn’t surprising immigration was the serious concern that students said they’d like legal help with.

“Especially with how the political climate played out this particular year (and) CSUN being home to many, many undocumented students or individuals that come from undocumented families,” said

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Alexanian, who is about to start his senior year with a double major in business management and business marketing. “They really need to have that information, know your rights, know you next steps … so they can have peace of mind when coming to school.”

With help from key CSUN faculty, Alexanian and Lopez connected with Southwestern Law School, which already shares a combined bachelor’s and Juris Doctor degree program with CSUN. Southwestern students will volunteer in the Student Legal Clinic, directed by attorney and Southwestern lecturer Julia Vazquez, and consult with students looking for help on immigration issues.

Vazquez said the clinic will take on the cases of immigrant students seeking help and represent them. In instances where students want legal help on non-immigration issues, the clinic will refer them to a network of low-cost and pro bono attorneys, she said.

“We’re only taking on immigration cases, but we really want to be able to meet the legal needs of the CSUN community,” she said.

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The clinic will be held two days a week in a handful of study rooms on the second floor of CSUN’s Delmar T. Oviatt Library. It is set to open Aug. 23, the first day of the school’s fall semester. Lopez said she could’ve benefitted from such help as a freshman. Once she got to college, she realized her immigration status could pose a problem.

Lopez came to the United States from Mexico with her family when she was 11. She is a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, immigrant. Former President Barack Obama said DACA immigrants would be protected from deportation, but President Donald Trump hasn’t made any long-term decisions about DACA.

“Giving that we have such a high population of DACA students, we wanted to do something about it,” Lopez said by phone from Washington, D.C., where she is interning at the Embassy of Mexico. Lopez is about to start her senior year, with a major in criminal justice, and plans to go into immigration law.

“DACA is really something that’s uncertain. You really don’t know what’s going to happen with its future,” Lopez said. “I know a lot of (CSUN students)are going to have a lot of questions. What happens with DACA? What’s going to happen if it gets taken away?”

The aim of the Student Legal Clinic is to provide CSUN students with legal services, since half of the $40,000 in funding for the program’s first year comes from the student government (Southwestern Law School provided the other half), Alexanian said. Exceptions might be made to help a family member of a student.

Lopez and Alexanian have gotten the clinic off to its first year, but it will be up to future students to keep it going.