Henry Zhu (Pritzker ’22) was awarded the prestigious Skadden Fellowship to work at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, the University announced Thursday.
The annual fellowship, awarded to recent law school graduates, pays for two years of salary and training at a public interest organization. Zhu is one of 28 award recipients in 2024.
At the National Immigrant Justice Center, Zhu will oppose government efforts to deny asylum claims for immigrants who have suffered or fear persecution for belonging to a particular social group, he said in the release.
Zhu said he wanted to help asylum seekers because of his experience as an immigrant in the release. He was born in China, moved to Canada at age 5 and moved to the United States at age 10.
“Even though my family did not come here through asylum, I’m very much aware of how difficult and how invasive the process is, how much you have to tell the government every single thing that’s happened to you,” Zhu said in the release.
It took Zhu’s family 16 years to gain citizenship after arriving in the U.S., and Zhu said in the release he hopes to continue working at immigrant rights organizations throughout his career.
“The immigration system tends to forget that the people in it are also human beings rather than just files and papers and alien registration numbers,” Zhu said in the release. “Just giving the clients we work with a sense of agency and humanity is important to me.”
Email: [email protected]
X: @IsaiahStei27
Related Stories:
— Law school establishes public interest fellowship
— Pritzker’s Master of Science in Law program turns 10
— Northwestern law student starts company to address disparities in the legal system
