Carolyn Patty Blum

I met Maggi back in the early 1980s when we were both working on issues affecting Central American refugees in the United States. Maggi was representing alot of individual asylum-seekers and, because of the government's discriminatory policies, was forced to take alot of those cases to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Her appellate work laid the foundation for that court's deepened appreciation of the proper meaning of "refugee" under U.S. law and for the particular human rights catastrophe faced by Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylum-seeker. She quietly, conscientiously, and thoroughly did first rate work....But that was Maggi's hallmark her whole career. She did the work. And she did not stand in the limelight. And she made a real difference.

Then, deeply affected by what she heard from those clients, Maggi moved to El Salvador. And her work there was so important and crucial and complementary to the on-going work here around protection of Central Americans in the U.S. And she had the guts to go do it. But it didn't even seem like guts when Maggi did it. It just seemed like her way, the natural way it should happen. That's just where she was meant to be.

My career and Maggi's have overlapped many times over the twenty years since those days. We always asked about each other kids tho I was never privileged to meet hers. But it was a shared concern and care. A few years ago, we worked closely together on the case, Romagoza et. al. v. Garcia and Vides, which has been mentioned by a few other people. Maggi was one of our expert witnesses and expert she was. I learned so much from Maggi about El Salvador and how to think about the important issues we needed to grapple with in our case. Our victory was hers too.

I recently called on her to ask for some help in getting some documents. Of course, she generously offered to track them down for me. Maggi's way again....always the offer, assist in any way possible, do the work, help make change.

She is sorely missed and will be long remembered.

Patty Blum
Senior Legal Advisor,
Center for Justice and Accountability
co-counsel, Romagoza-Arce et. al. v. Garcia and Vides-Casanova
cpblum@law.berkeley.edu