This Cal State immigration clinic provides free legal advice. It might come to a ‘full stop’

Adolfo Romero Ramirez has completed his most recent three DACA applications with help from the legal services program at Cal State Fresno. If the CSU program’s budget is cut by 75% as proposed, the number of staff provided by four legal service organizations would need to be significantly reduced, said Barbara Pinto, managing attorney for Oakland-based Immigrant Legal Defense, which serves Cal State Fresno and eight other campuses. At Cal State Fresno, the legal services are housed within the university’s Dream Success Center, which serves undocumented and DACA students. “As someone that’s undocumented, trying to go to school and save money for that, every hundred dollars meant a lot to me.” Since then, he has completed three DACA renewals with help from the legal services program at Cal State Fresno. “Why would they want to stop funding that?” said Romero Ramirez, 35, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cal State Fresno and is now teaching communications there and at Fresno City College.