Barbara Hines (lawyer) facts for kids
Barbara Hines is an American lawyer who helps immigrants. She started the immigration clinic at the University of Texas School of Law. Hines is known for defending the rights of immigrants. She became famous for helping families held at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas get released in 2008.
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Helping Immigrants Through Law
Barbara Hines started working on immigration rights in 1975. She joined Legal Aid of Travis County. Because she spoke Spanish well, she was given immigration cases. This area of law soon became her main focus.
Hines began teaching law in 1999. In 2007, she started the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Texas law school. There, she taught many students. They got to work on real cases for immigrants.
Hines became widely known for her work at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center. This center in Taylor, Texas, held families with young children. Many people thought this was wrong. After visiting the center in 2006, Hines saw children wearing prison clothes. They had almost no schooling.
Barbara Hines and her students from UT Law School put pressure on the government. This led the ACLU to settle a lawsuit in 2008. Because of this, babies and children were released from the T. Don Hutto center. Children are no longer held there.
Hines is part of many groups that help immigrants. She has also written many articles about immigration law.
Her Early Life
Barbara Hines was born in Chicago. Her parents were Jewish and had moved from Nazi Germany. When she was nine, her family moved to Brownsville, Texas. This city is right on the border, which became important in her life.
Hines went to the University of Texas at Austin. She worked for The Rag, which was an underground newspaper. She also protested against the war as a student. The FBI even watched her because of her activism.
Education and Achievements
Hines earned her first degree in Latin American studies from UT-Austin in 1969. She chose law school to keep working for social justice. She started studying law at UT in 1972. She then moved to Boston and got her law degree (J.D.) from Northeastern University in 1975. After that, she came back to Texas.
Hines was a Fulbright scholar in Argentina in 1996 and 2004. She founded the University of Texas Law School immigration clinic. Many groups have honored Hines for her work.
She won the Jack Wasserman Award in 1992 for excellent work in lawsuits. In 2007, she received the Elmer Fried Excellence in Teaching Award. In 2000, Texas Lawyer magazine named her one of the 100 Legal Legends of the Twentieth Century. The National Lawyer's Guild Immigration Project gave her the Carol King Award in 2010. In 2015, she won the Massey Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas School of Law.
Retirement and Continued Work
Barbara Hines retired from her job at the University of Texas Law School in December 2014. She still works pro bono (which means for free) on immigration issues. She has especially focused on families being held in detention centers since 2014.
