During the first year of her Larsen fellowship, Sandhya worked at Mission Action in San Francisco, representing detained and non-detained immigrants in deportation proceedings. Prior to law school, she worked as an immigrants’ rights organizer and immigration policy analyst.
She is now extending her fellowship with Berkeley Law’s Immigration Liberation Project, where she helps individuals in immigration detention challenge the constitutionality of their confinement through habeas petitions. Fighting immigration cases while detained presents significant obstacles: inhumane conditions, remote facility locations, limited legal representation, and lower judicial grant rates.
Sandhya is particularly interested in working with detained individuals and those caught at the intersection of the criminal and immigration systems, recognizing that fighting deportation from one’s community versus detention can determine whether someone faces removal to a country where they fear for their life or remains safely in the United States.