Tucked away in Joan Axinn Hall on the south side of Hofstra University’s campus, you will find a branch of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law. One professor who works there has an office packed with artwork on her walls and around her room. There, you will see anything from a balloon covered in Sari cloth to a crocheted stuffed rabbit looking down on you from a shelf. Paintings, pictures and trinkets cover the room, giving it a vibrant yet cozy feel.

This is the office of Lauris Wren, director and founder of the Asylum Clinic at the law school. The clinic does pro bono work by providing legal representation for immigrants in the area who are seeking asylum. 

The artwork in her office is from her students who work in the clinic. Their final project is to make something that relates to their time spent there. Her office proudly shows her and her student’s passion for helping immigrants. 

One art piece is a framed cross stitch of a quote from Audre Lorde, which states, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Wren gave a student that quote as advice to make sure she took care of herself while also taking care of her clients. The student made that cross stitch for her project, as a token of gratitude.

“I had talked about creating boundaries so that you don’t burn out, at which point you’re unhappy and you’re not any use for your clients anyhow,” Wren said. 

That student is now an immigration attorney, as are many of the students who go through the Asylum Clinic program. Wren takes about six to eight law student applicants per semester, and each student handles asylum cases under her supervision. Students work in teams of two on the cases and represent the client in court. Though the minimum time a student can spend at the clinic is one semester, some students volunteer after their semester is finished.

Wren gives her students guidance by teaching seminars and meeting with the student teams to make sure they know what to do when in an asylum office or in court. According to Wren, though cases sometimes spend years in appellate courts, the clinic has not lost a case yet.

“Usually, [the students] handle it better than the vast majority of attorneys do,” Wren said. “They do a really terrific job.”

Wren grew up in Queens and moved to Garden City before going to Williams College in Massachusetts for her bachelor’s degree. She earned her law degree from Columbia University in 1993 and began practicing law. However, it was not until she took a trip to Costa Rica that she discovered that she wanted to work in immigration law. 

During her trip, she worked for Center for Justice and International Law, representing people from countries near Costa Rica in human rights cases. It was there that she fell in love with working with people of Latin American descent and had an itch to work in immigration law.

She spent a few years working for the Central American Refugee Center in Hempstead and went on human rights missions to Mexico and Malaysia before approaching Hofstra with the idea of a political asylum clinic in 2003. Wren wanted to be closer to her parents, who were experiencing health problems at the time. She came to Hofstra under the impression that she would not stay for long.

“My idea was that I would probably stay at Hofstra for a few years to see if I like teaching,” Wren said. 

She found that teaching students immigration law while also helping clients gain asylum was extremely fulfilling. This year will mark 23 years since she started at the university.

Wren describes her clients as the best people she has ever met. One client helped her build a permanent fixture in her work. This client, according to Wren, was persecuted in their home country due to her being part of the LGBTQ+ community. After coming to the United States, she fought a long battle for asylum and eventually gained her citizenship. Wren and her client found that there were not many resources available for queer immigrants on Long Island, particularly Spanish-speaking ones. 

Together, they started an LGBTQ+ immigrant support group, which her client now runs. It has been going strong for 10 years now. Wren expressed the importance of providing this kind of support due to the gap in resources for queer immigrants.

“It’s been like a family to the people in the group,” Wren said. “I think it’s been lifesaving to many members.” 

Though Wren loves her work, it has gotten more challenging in the last two years due to immigration crackdowns by President Donald Trump’s administration. The presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement surging across the country has made immigrants less safe and has led to more captures and detainments. Talk of deporting undocumented immigrants to places that are not their home country has left many people fearful. 

In late Nov. 2025, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) placed a hold on issuing decisions for all asylum seekers. That hold is still in effect, with no timetable on when it will be lifted. The USCIS decision has hampered Wren’s work, as clients who may have been waiting for a decision for years still do not have one. 

Since the second Trump Administration started, Wren’s work has become much harder and more taxing. She has seen many people in her field burn out, lose hope or leave immigration law altogether. However, she finds that setting boundaries for herself with her work helps. She, herself, follows the advice of Lorde. She also finds inspiration to keep going from her clients.

“They have been through an incredible amount, yet they are still very hopeful,” Wren said. “You don’t try to come to a new country and start a new life unless you have hope that things can be better than how they are. It is a stunning example of resilience and the capacity of the human spirit for resilience.”