Requesting Employment Authorization for Asylum Seekers

Virginia Marie Raymond earned her A.B. in Psychology from Bryn Mawr College, and her J.D., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Virginia began volunteering with Proyecto Libertad in Harlingen, Texas, as a law student and then in 1987 spent several months there as a volunteer lawyer. Returning to Austin, she gathered friends who together founded the Political Asylum Project of Austin/Proyecto de Asilo Político de Austin (PAPA), where Virginia remained a volunteer and board member until 2000. PAPA later morphed into American Gateways. Meanwhile, Virginia was raising three kids with Tom Kolker while immersing herself in Mexican American literature, history, and anthropology.

Between 2007 and 2011, she directed the Texas After Violence Project, an independent oral history project on the death penalty. Returning to immigration law in 2012, she has directed most of her energy towards removal defense of people incarcerated in, or alumnx of, Karnes, T. Don Hutto, Joe Corley, Pearsall, Robstown, and the three adult immigration prisons in Laredo.

*Special thanks also to Alexandra Meyer of Wake Forest University for her work on this course.*