“This National Pro Bono Week, we would like to feature two of our Supervising Attorneys, Susan Beaty ‘18 and Priya Arvind Patel. Susan and Priya are being featured for their impactful work as supervising attorneys of our Student-Initiated Legal Services Project, the Berkeley Immigration Group (BIG).
Susan Beaty and Priya Arvind Patel are Supervising Attorneys with Centro Legal de la Raza’s Immigrants’ Rights Program. Centro Legal’s Immigrants’ Rights Program defends the rights and dignity of immigrant communities in California through direct legal representation, community education, and policy advocacy. Susan and Priya are part of Centro Legal’s Abolishing Immigration Detention team, which represents detained and incarcerated immigrants in deportation proceedings, and collaborates with organizers and advocacy groups to uplift the demands of incarcerated people and push towards prison abolition.
Susan first joined Centro Legal as an Equal Justice Works fellow in 2018 supporting incarcerated immigrants in removal proceedings at FCI Dublin. While at Berkeley Law, Susan interned at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, the East Bay Community Law Center, Legal Aid At Work, and Pangea Legal Services, and was a co-leader of BIG. Prior to law school, Susan was a community organizer in Providence, Rhode Island, and worked on campaigns for immigrants’ rights, racial justice and police accountability, and education equity.
Priya has worked at Centro Legal since 2019. Before that, she worked as a senior attorney in the Detained Adult Program at the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition in Washington, DC, and as a staff attorney in the Immigration Legal Program at Lutheran Social Services of New York.
They are both aspiring amateur potters.
Centro’s Abolishing Immigration Detention team and BIG work to abolish the prison to deportation pipeline by representing incarcerated noncitizens at FCI Dublin, a federal women’s prison, who face arrest and imminent deportation by ICE on the day that they are freed. Through this work, BIG students advocate with ICE to cancel detainers of noncitizens so that instead of being permanently separated from their families, they return home to our communities. Susan and Priya deeply enjoy working and learning with BIG students, and are grateful for their advocacy.
We celebrate and thank Susan and Priya, the team that supports them at Centro Legal de la Raza, along with all of our Supervising Attorneys, this National Pro Bono Week.
The pro bono work our students engage in through SLPS and BLAST is only possible under their supervision, mentorship, and guidance.”
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