Barbara Hines, Denise Gilman Play Key Role in Defending Detained Refugee Kids, Moms in Texas

Jazmine Ulloa, Austin American-Statesman, Jan. 31, 2016 - "More than 120 women with children — loaded into government vehicles and shuffled from city to city — arrived this month at the immigrant family detention center in Dilley, adding to the caseloads of lawyers working out of a large mobile home on the grounds.  On an overcast Tuesday, days after deportation raids rattled the Atlanta area, the rooms buzzed.  Toddlers played in the visitation area.  Babies cried.  Center staffers kept watch.  Amid the bustle were Barbara Hines and Denise Gilman.  Anyone who has practiced immigration law in Texas — or the country — has heard of Hines, founder of the immigration law clinic at the University of Texas, renowned for bringing international attention to the grim conditions at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor in 2006.  Working at her side for the past eight years has been Gilman, 47, an attorney and law professor who has directed the clinic since Hines, 68, retired more than a year ago.  Hines and Gilman are among the chief architects of a network of lawyers, legal assistants, students and volunteers who work on immigrants’ cases for free at the two family detention centers that opened in the summer of 2014 in South Texas.  With scarce resources and the threat of deportations, the women get help from the lawyers to make their best case for asylum."