St. John's University Law Faculty Blog

On October 22, Professor Jennifer Baum was honored with a Mayoral Service Recognition Award by Safe Passage Project, for her leadership role in representing unaccompanied minors in family court and immigration court.   Over the past five years, Professor Baum has overseen or consulted on the immigration cases of dozens of children in the New York area who were fleeing family and community violence in Central America.

Since the summer, Professor Baum has also been a consulting member of the children’s trial team on a Hague Convention International Child Abduction case in the Eastern District of New York.  The children and their mother fled a closed religious community in Guatemala to escape physical and psychological abuse, including child marriage.  The father’s legal efforts to return the children to the community were dismissed last week, and the children are now able to remain in New York with their mother. Professor Baum worked with the Children’s Law Center and Wilkie Farr & Gallagher to obtain a dismissal of the case, Teller v. Helbrans.

On November 12, Professor Baum appeared on the PIX11 morning television show to explain the DACA case in the Supreme Court.  Professor Baum reviewed the claims and possible outcomes in the case, and provided background on so-called Dreamers, who were brought to this country as children only to learn as they grew up that they lacked lawful status.  The DACA program provided Dreamers with relief from deportation; three lower courts have found that the Trump administration’s termination of the program was unlawful. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments concerning DACA on November 12.