
Eleanor Cashmore
Host: Greater Boston Legal Services
Sponsor: Biogen, Foley Hoag LLP
Clarisa’s Fellowship promoted and enforced immigrants’ rights to access health care and public benefits in California’s rural Central Valley through direct immigration legal services, community education and outreach, and policy advocacy.
Immigrant families are often excluded from our health care and public benefits systems, oftentimes due to their immigration status, and other times because of complex eligibility and income restrictions, language access barriers, and fear of immigration consequences for seeking public assistance. Moreover, immigrant families in California’s Central Valley lack access to affordable legal services to inform them of their immigration relief options and rights to access health care, regardless of immigration status. These access barriers have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and exclusionary immigration policies, such as the constantly changing “public charge” rules, which have caused eligible immigrant families and their US citizen children to dis-enroll or avoid public benefits for fear of being disqualified from obtaining lawful status.
From her own family’s experiences with the health care system, Clarisa understands that underserved minority patients can suffer poorer health outcomes, and even death, because of discriminatory practices. Her family’s perseverance motivates her to improve health outcomes and access to health care for immigrant families through legal intervention.
During the two-year Fellowship, Clarisa:
After her Fellowship, Clarisa will stay at California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation to serve as the Director of CRLAF’s Immigrant Health Equity Project. She will continue to provide immigration legal assistance and engage in community education and policy advocacy with a focus on promoting access to health care and public benefits for immigrant communities.
Clarisa Reyes-Becerra ’19 Awarded Equal Justice Works Fellowship
As the granddaughter of immigrant farmworkers, I endeavor to expose and fight the exclusionary policies discriminately affecting the health of immigrant farmworkers in the Central Valley, and make their stories heard, known, and accounted for.
Clarisa Reyes-Becerra /
2020 Equal Justice Works Fellow
Host: Greater Boston Legal Services
Sponsor: Biogen, Foley Hoag LLP
Host: Legal Services of Southern Piedmont
Sponsor: Boston Scientific Corporation, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C.
Host: National Women's Law Center
Sponsor: Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Host: Welfare Law Center
Sponsor: Debevoise & Plimpton LLP