University of St. Thomas

Professor Wiebe's web page
SSRN Page

J.D., New York University School of Law
LL.M., Georgetown University Law Center
M.Phil., Latin American Studies, Oxford University
B.A., Kansas State University

Virgil Wiebe was born and raised in Garden City, Kansas. He attended Kansas State University, where he received an Honors B.A. in geography and political science. As a Rhodes Scholar, he received an M.Phil. in Latin American studies from Oxford University . Following time working with refugees in south Texas, he attended law school at New York University, where he was a Root-Tilden-Snow Public Interest Scholar, an International Law Fellow, and an editor of the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics.

After law school, Wiebe completed a clerkship with the Honorable James C. Francis, IV, a federal magistrate judge in the Southern District of New York. He then served for four years as Director of Immigration Services and Supervising Attorney for Interfaith Community Services in New York City, a non-profit organization assisting refugees and immigrants. While at ICS, Wiebe represented hundreds of immigrants before the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and in Immigration court. There he also led efforts to create community based immigration clinics in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island .

In 1999, Wiebe joined the Center for Applied Legal Studies at Georgetown University Law Center as an Advocacy Fellow. There he taught in the immigration clinic. In 2001, he was awarded an LL.M. from Georgetown. In 2001, Wiebe was appointed visiting assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Law, where he established an in-house immigration clinic and taught criminal law.

Wiebe has been an active participant in the efforts to curb the use of landmines and cluster bombs in armed conflicts. As a consultant to the Mennonite Central Committee, he has attended United Nations conferences on landmines and conventional weapons, and has addressed diplomats on international humanitarian law matters. He has also advised non-profit organizations on establishing immigration programs for low income communities. He is active in his local congregation and various professional organizations, serves pro bono clients, and frequently presents at continuing legal education (CLE) seminars..

As director of clinical education at St. Thomas, Professor Wiebe is one of the principal architects of the University’s unique Interprofessional Center for Counseling and Legal Services. At the Center, students from the schools of Law, Graduate Professional Psychology, and Social Work provide counseling and legal services to diverse and under-served populations.

Representative Scholarship

For Whom the Little Bells Toll: Recent Judgments by International Tribunals on the Legality of Cluster Munitions,U of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-23, August 2007.

Still Thinking: Thinking about Dual Citizenship and Hospitality Can Guide a Christian Response to Immigration, Christian Leader, January 2007.

 Maybe You Should, Yes You Must, No You Can’t: Shifting Standards and Practices for Assuring Document Reliability in Asylum and Withholding of Removal Cases, Immigration Briefings, November 2006.

Thoughts From An Immigration Attorney, video discussion module in Well-Founded Fear: Practicing Asylum Law (2004).

Washing Your Feet in the Blood of the Wicked: Seeking Justice and Contending with Vengeance in an Interprofessional Setting, 1 University of St. Thomas Law Journal 182 (2003).

Cluster Bombs and Explosive Remnants of War: Cooperation and Conflict Between Non-Government Organizations and Middle-Power States, in Reframing the Agenda: The Impact of NGO and Middle Power Cooperation on International Security Policy (Stefan Brem and Kenneth Rutherford, eds., Praeger 2003).   Cluster Munitions Website

Grounds of Inadmissibility, edited and written with Anna Gallagher, in Anna M. Gallagher, Immigration Law Service 2d (West 2003).

Footprints of Death: Cluster Bombs as Indiscriminate Weapons under International Humanitarian Law, Michigan Journal of International Law, Vol. 22, #1 (Fall 2000).

Asking for a Note from Your Torturer: Corroboration and Authentication Requirements in Asylum, Withholding, and Torture Convention Cases, with Serena Parker, in Immigration & Nationality Law Handbook 2001-2002 (updated and reprinted in Immigration Briefings, October 2001).

Courses Taught

Clinic
Immigration Law

Mailing Address
MSL 100
1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis , MN 55403-2015