Webinar Archive:  Expert Witness Series

Webinar date:  November 19, 2013

 

Description

This webinar helps participants understand the ways that expert assistance can benefit battered women involved in immigration proceedings.  The presenters discuss the role of experts in these proceedings, common substantive areas in which expert assistance is valuable, and ways that expert assistance in immigration proceedings is similar to and different from expert work in other legal arenas.

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Presenters explore a) admissibility of expert testimony in immigration proceedings; b) the role of dv/sa experts working on behalf of battered immigrant women; c) common issues that arise for battered women involved in immigration proceedings and the role of experts in addressing them; and d) some "nuts and bolts" of immigration proceedings that are important for experts to know.

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About the Presenter

Edna Yang, Esq., is the General Counsel for American Gateways, formerly the Political Asylum Project of Austin (PAPA) where she directs the legal services for the agency.   Ms. Yang also served as the Interim Executive Director for American Gateways in 2012.  She began her work at PAPA in 2002 as the coordinating attorney for the Program Representing Immigrant Survivors of Abuse, providing direct representation to immigrants seeking relief under the immigration provisions of the Violence Against Women Act.  She became the General Counsel for the agency overseeing all legal services and programs in 2006.

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Ms. Yang represents indigent immigrants before the Immigration Service, the Immigration Court, and in Federal Court.  She also conducts training sessions for law enforcement officials and social service providers throughout central Texas and nationally about how to work with, and provide services to, immigrants in the community.  She organizes outreach and educational sessions for immigrant members of the community.  Ms. Yang currently serves as a Council Member on the State Bar Immigration and Nationality Section and from 2004 - 2005, she served on the Austin Commission for Immigrant Affairs.  She is a member in good standing of the State Bar of Texas. She is also a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the National Immigration Project, and the National Lawyer's Guild.

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Noël Bridget Busch-Armendariz, Ph.D., LMSW, MPA, has more than 20 years of experience working to end interpersonal violence.  She is a professor at the School of Social Work at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin and as the associate dean of research and director of the Center for Social Work Research.  Dr. Busch-Armendariz teaches graduate courses in domestic violence, research, and social policy and an undergraduate course on modern slavery.  Dr. Busch-Armendariz is the founder and principal investigator of the UT Austin Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (IDVSA), a collaboration of the School of Social Work, the School of Nursing, the School of Law, and the Bureau for Business Research with more than 150 affiliate community organizations.

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Since joining UT Dr. Busch-Armendariz has directed research for the National Institute of Justice, the Office for Victims of Crime, the Office on Violence Against Women, Office of the Attorney General of Texas, the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission totaling more than $5.1 million dollars in external funding.  Her areas of specialization are interpersonal violence, refugees, asylees, and victims of human trafficking, and international social work.  She is regularly called as an expert witness criminal, civil, and immigration cases and directs a national training on the topic.

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Click here to access recording.  A copy of the PowerPoint (and any other documents from the webinar) is available by clicking here.