Don\u2019t look for Ellen Messali \u201910 JD on Monday nights.<\/p>\n
You won\u2019t find her in her car, where she\u2019s typically making good use of her hands-free function to knock off phone calls during her 45-minute commute.<\/p>\n
You won\u2019t find her running, even though she\u2019s invested in a home treadmill since the coronavirus pandemic has kept her away from the gym where she was once training for a 10K.<\/p>\n
You won\u2019t find her binging on podcasts, though she\u2019s become an avid listener since this proud former \u201ctechnology rejecter\u201d finally caved and got her first smartphone in 2019.<\/p>\n
You also won\u2019t find her at her desk at New Haven Legal Assistance, though on many other nights she\u2019s probably there, working well into the evening preparing briefs or evidentiary records or making other arrangements for her clients, many of whom are in detention facilities outside of Connecticut and all of whom are refugees and immigrants fleeing circumstances beyond their control.<\/p>\n
Instead, on Monday nights, Ellen Messali is tap dancing.<\/p>\n
She started tap dancing at two years old, stopped for more than a decade, and picked it back up at age 31. Even Covid-19 hasn\u2019t slowed her, thanks to an innovative dance instructor, video conferencing on Zoom, and a portable dance floor in her home.<\/p>\n
Tap dancing is her escape, she says, playing a huge role in her sanity, something vital for an attorney who spends her days and nights thinking about her cases and her clients and, often, the violent and traumatic circumstances that have led them to seek legal aid.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lifesaver,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it\u2019s the one thing that sort of helps repair a lot of mental health damage throughout the week.\u201d<\/p>\n
A UConn Law graduate, and a product of professor Jon Bauer\u2019s tutelage at the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic, Messali has worked at New Haven Legal Assistance for just over four years, and she helped to establish the Immigration Unit there.<\/p>\n
She primarily does removal defense, with a priority for detainees being held in federal custody, and as one of the few law groups in Connecticut doing this kind of work, the Unit is busy, especially under the immigration policies in place during the past four years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re not detained, it\u2019s much easier to find counsel,\u201d she explains. \u201cYou have much more time to pursue and prepare your applications for relief, because the detained docket moves so quickly. You have your first hearing, and then, a month later, you have your final hearing and in that time you\u2019re supposed to find counsel. That counsel\u2019s supposed to prepare an application for you, talk to numerous witnesses to try to get statements on your behalf, gather evidence from you when you\u2019re in lockup \u2014 I mean, it\u2019s a system created to be impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is work that she views as \u201cinsanely important,\u201d but that\u2019s only part of why she\u2019s dedicated herself to it. She\u2019s a second generation American, but she\u2019s quick to say that she doesn\u2019t have an immigration story of her own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to do something that would feed my soul,\u201d she says, and because of her mother, a humanitarian. \u201cI grew up watching her just be a good person.\u201d<\/p>\n