University Community Service Center Profiles Young Center's Kristin Love '09
The University Community Service Center has posted a profile of Kristin Love, '09, Staff Attorney at the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights. Below is an excerpt from the article, which you can read in its entirety here:
Love became more active in social justice issues upon entering the Law School. She worked with the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic to represent individuals charged with federal crimes, which greatly impacted her community outlook. “It reaffirmed for me my commitment…to social concerns and the community where I lived,” she said. “[I witnessed] the grinding poverty in Chicago…and worked with people to root out social injustice.”
It was this dual passion for working with children and fighting against social injustice that led Love to her current work at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights at the University of Chicago. “[The Young Center] is the only organization that advocates for the best interests of immigrant children, their safety and wellbeing,” Love said. “The children [often] endure really awful experiences in their country of origin and on their journey to the U.S…. [They] arrive without parents, without legal status.”
As a Staff Attorney, she advocates for and works with these children firsthand, accompanying them to immigration court and critical interviews with government officials. Because these proceedings do not distinguish between adults and children, “[the children] really have no idea what’s going,” she said. She hopes for “major reforms in the immigration system,” so that it “recognizes that children are children.”