Office Details
Administrative Assistant: Terry Valdivia, 410.837.5762
John and Frances Angelos Law Center, Room 200
Education
J.D., University of Tennessee
B.B.A., Belmont University
Areas of Expertise
Immigration and Naturalization Law
Refugee and Asylum Law
Biography
Valeria Gomez, an expert in immigration and asylum law, joined the UBalt Law faculty in 2022. She directs the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic and Immigrant Justice Clinic and also teaches Immigration Law. Gomez regularly speaks on issues related to asylum and immigration law and clinical teaching.
Gomez’s scholarship currently focuses on the intersection of immigration law, gender, sexual orientation, and reproductive justice, and on the effect of geography and space in the implementation and consequences of immigration law and policy. Her scholarship is informed by her experience as a practicing immigration attorney, her past experiences as a public interest attorney in under-served legal regions and her experiences as a Mexican-American woman.
Prior to joining the law school faculty, Gomez was a Clinical Teaching Fellow and a Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law and a Clinical Lecturer at the University of Tennessee School of Law. Her practice experience includes representing immigrant children in removal proceedings at Volunteer Immigrant Defense Advocates (VIDA), a nonprofit legal services organization that she co-founded in Knoxville, Tennessee, and practicing employment law in Nashville, Tennessee.
Gomez is admitted to the Tennessee and Maryland bars and is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She also serves as a member of the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration and as a board member for the Clinical Legal Education Association. She is fluent in Spanish.
Magazine/Trade Publication
Gomez, V. (2024). Geography as Due Process in Immigration Court. Bender's Immigration Bulletin. 29(9), 30.
Law Review
Gomez, V. (2023). Geography as Due Process in Immigration Court. University of Wisconsin Law Review. 23(1), 44.
Gomez, V., Shah, R., Sharpless, R., McKanders, K., Rosenbaum, C., Rosenbloom, R., Gonzalez, C., & Gleeson, S. Law and Society Association Annual Meeting 2025, "Author Meets Reader Session: New Socio-legal Books Centering Migrant Stories," Law and Society Association, Chicago, Illinois. (2025).
Gomez, V. Law and Society Association Annual Meeting 2025, "The Particularity Problem in LGBTQ+ Asylum Claims," Law and Society Association, Chicago, Illinois. (2025).
Gomez, V., Cazares Willingham, J., & Sifuentes Davis, L. AALS Conference on Clinical Education, "Modeling Vulnerability," Association of American Law Schools, Baltimore, MD. (2025).
Gomez, V., & Gilman, D. Mid-Atlantic Clinical Conference, "Works in Progress: Immigration Detention Under Trump: How Did We Get Here and Can Students Help?," Washington, DC. (2025).
Gomez, V. Clinical Law Review Writers Workshop, "The New Dobbs Borders for Immigrant Women," Clinical Law Review, New York City, NY. (2024).
Gomez, V. AALS Conference on Clinical Education, "Inclusive Language in Clinical Practice," Association for American Law Schools, St. Louis, MO. (2024).
Gomez, V. AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education, "Beyond Buzzwords: Lessons Learned About How Clinics Can Support Social Movements," Association for American Law Schools, St. Louis, MO. (2024).
Gomez, V. AALS Annual Meeting 2024, "New Voices in Immigration Workshop," Association of American Law Schools, Washington, DC. (2024).
Gomez, V. Clinical Law Review Writers Workshop, "The New Dobbs Borders for Immigrant Women," Clinical Law Review, New York City, NY. (2023).
Gomez, V. Law and Society Association Annual Meeting 2023, "Geography as Due Process in Immigration Court," Law and Society Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico. (2023).
Gomez, V., Cabot, J., Green, L., Hinds, M., Millward, J., Ross, C., & . Association of American Law Schools 2023 Conference on Clinical Education, "Building a Stronger Foundation: Goal Setting and Design Strategies for Clinical Fellowship Programs," Association of American Law Schools, San Francisco, California. (2023).
Gomez, V., & Ochoa, C. Association of American Law Schools 2023 Conference on Clinical Education, "It Takes A Village: Intilling a Sense of Student Ownership over Clinic Cases & Projects," Association of American Law Schools, San Francisco, California. (2023).
Gomez, V., Keyes, E., Pritchett, S., & Toussaint, E. Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting 2023, "Experiential Mainstreaming in the Law Curriculum," Association of American Law Schools, San Diego, California. (2023).
Gomez, V., Barrera, L., Vera, P., Amarante, A. A., & Kocher, A. Law and Society Association Global Meeting 2023, "Procedural Subjugation in Immigration Proceedings," Law and Society Association, Lisbon, Portugal. (2022).
Gomez, Valeria (Principal), "Summer Research Fellowship" Sponsored by School of Law, The University of Baltimore, $20000. (2024 - 2025).
Gomez, Valeria , "Summer Research Fellowship" Sponsored by School of Law, The University of Baltimore, $17500. (2023 - 2024).
Gomez, Valeria (Principal), "Summer Research Fellowship" Sponsored by School of Law, The University of Baltimore, $15000. (2022 - 2023).
"The New Dobbs Borders for Immigrant Women" (On-Going)
In the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, states have passed and proposed a myriad of laws that pose civil and criminal liability for those that obtain, perform, or facilitate abortions and abortion access. Many of these laws have extraterritorial effects, controlling not just the actions of the residents present in the states, but also of their residents attempts to seek abortions outside of the state. In light of this patchwork of laws and threatened limitation to interstate mobility, state borders take on an increased significance. For noncitizen people, whose rights, mobility, and stability are already dominated by the borders of the United States, this poses particularized and distinct harms.
This paper will provide an overview of the types of statutes that have been proposed and passed, and will draw on the literature that has already taxonomized these statutes, focusing especially on the statutes that punish abortion-related acts conducted outside the abortion-restrictive state. The paper will then describe the unique ways in which these statutes impact noncitizen people who might seek an abortion. Some consequences I will highlight in this paper include the immigration consequences that could result from certain prosecutions or convictions. The paper will also reveal the ways that this patchwork abortion landscape impacts noncitizens, especially unauthorized noncitizens, whose mobility and location is already restricted or monitored due to immigration detention, geo-tracking apps and ankle monitors, immigration checkpoints, and a lack of access to identity documents, credit, and health insurance.