IMMIGRATION IN A NEW ADMINISTRATION. January 30, 2009 Lewis Katz Building University Park, Pennsylvania

Transcription

1 IMMIGRATION IN A NEW ADMINISTRATION January 30, 2009 Lewis Katz Building University Park, Pennsylvania

2 2 S CHEDULE OF EVENTS - LE WIS KATZ BUILDING 8:15-8:55 a.m. REGISTRATION FOR THE IMMIGRATION SYMPOSIUM 9:00-9:10 a.m. WELCOME Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia (M.C.), Penn State s Dickinson School of Law 9:10-9:20 a.m. OPENING REMARKS Dean Philip J. McConnaughay, Penn State s Dickinson School of Law 9:20-10:40 a.m. THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE Jeanne Butterfield, American Immigration Lawyers Association Regan Cooper, Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition Steve Legomsky, Washington University School of Law Carl Thorsen, American Continental Group Victor Romero (Moderator), Penn State s Dickinson School of Law 10:40-10:55 a.m. BREAK 10:55 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. DUE PROCESS & DETENTION Megan Bremer, Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center Paromita Shah, National Immigration Project Homer Venters, Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture Tara Magner (Moderator), National Immigrant Justice Center 12:15-1:20 p.m. LUNCH 1:20-2:40 p.m. IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT & SECURITY Muzaffar Chishti, New York University School of Law Nancy Morawetz, New York University School of Law Kareem Shora, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Rebekah Tosado, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Marshall Fitz (Moderator), American Immigration Lawyers Association 2:40-2:55 p.m. BREAK 2:55-4:15 p.m. ASYLUM & REFUGEE ISSUES David Koelsch, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law Sarah Paoletti, University of Pennsylvania Law School Michele Pistone, American University Washington College of Law Susan Benesch (Moderator), University of Baltimore 4:15-4:30 p.m. WRAP UP/EVALUATIONS 4:30-6:30 p.m. RECEPTION FOR THE CENTER FOR IMMIGRANTS RIGHTS

3 3 Penn State s Center for Immigrants Rights Philip J. McConnaughay writes in the areas of international commercial dispute resolution, the regulation of international commerce, and the role of arbitration in economic development. He is Dean of Penn State s Dickinson School of Law, Chair of the Executive Committee of Penn State s School of International Affairs, and a former Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law. Prior to teaching, Dean McConnaughay practiced law for eighteen years with the international law firm Morrison & Foerster, including almost ten years as a resident partner in Tokyo and Hong Kong. His work included representing Fujitsu Limited in the IBM/Fujitsu arbitration, a multibillion dollar dispute concerning worldwide intellectual property rights in mainframe computer operating system software. Dean McConnaughay is a former advisor to the Indonesian government on issues of drafting a new arbitration law, and he has lectured on development and intellectual property issues in Vietnam, China, and Europe. PROGRAM PANELISTS Susan Benesch [Moderator] is a Visiting Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, Senior Legal Advisor to the Center for Justice and Accountability, and a Dean s Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law School, where she has taught the Asylum Clinic, Refugee Law, and Human Rights Law. She also taught Asylum Law at American University Washington College of Law in 2008 and has lectured on refugee and human rights law at the University of Virginia, Duke, Princeton, Yale, Georgetown, and other universities. Professor Benesch is an experienced practitioner of asylum and refugee law and previously directed the Refugee Program at Amnesty International USA, based in Washington, D.C., and worked in the asylum and refugee program of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). She holds a JD from Yale and a bachelor of arts degree in history from Columbia College. Her recent publications include Vile Crime or Inalienable Right: A Model to Distinguish Hate Speech from Incitement to Genocide, in the Virginia Journal of International Law; Due Process and Decision-Making in U.S. Immigration Adjudication, in Administrative Law Review and The Ever-Expanding Material Support Bar: An Unjust Obstacle for Refugees and Asylum Seekers, with Devon Chaffee, in Interpreter Releases.

4 4 In the 1990s, Professor Benesch was a journalist overseas. She was chief staff writer in Haiti for the Miami Herald before, during, and after the 1994 U.S. invasion; covered wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala; and has reported from countries including Cuba, Brazil, and Russia for other newspapers, magazines, and Web sites. Megan Bremer is the Managing Attorney at the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center (PIRC). Ms. Bremer s work touches on the three main programs at PIRC: the Legal Orientation Program, Detained Torture Survivors, and Particularly Vulnerable Populations project. Prior to practicing immigration law, Ms. Bremer spent several years as an educator. Most recently, she worked with internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka and Sudan focusing on children affected by armed conflict. Ms. Bremer graduated from Northeastern University School of Law and Tufts University School of Medicine with a joint JD/MPH. She also has a master of education from Harvard University Graduate School of Education and a bachelor of arts from McGill University. She is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar. Jeanne A. Butterfield is the Executive Director for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) in Washington, D.C. Ms. Butterfield completed her law degree at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and is a member of the Massachusetts Bar. Since joining the AILA staff in 1993, Ms. Butterfield has worked extensively on the whole range of immigration policy issues facing our nation employment- and family-based immigration and refugee and asylum protection. She meets frequently with the various government agencies that implement our immigration laws and works with them to ensure that our laws and procedures are applied and implemented efficiently and fairly. She is a leading member of a broad-based coalition working closely with both Republican and Democratic allies on Capitol Hill and in the administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform. Ms. Butterfield is AILA s principal spokesperson in Washington, D.C., appearing frequently in the print and broadcast media. Ms. Butterfield serves on the Board of the American Immigration Law Foundation, a nonprofit organization that educates the public about the value of immigration to our country through its Immigration Policy Center and that pro-

5 5 Penn State s Center for Immigrants Rights vides litigation and legal advocacy through its Legal Action Center. She also serves on the Board of the National Immigration Forum and served as an expert resource to the bipartisan Independent Task Force on Immigration Reform co-chaired by former U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. Muzaffar Chishti is Director of the Migration Policy Institute at New York University School of Law. His work focuses on U.S. immigration policy, the intersection of labor and immigration law, civil liberties, and immigrant integration. Prior to joining MPI, Mr. Chishti was Director of the Immigration Project of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial & Textile Employees (UNITE). Mr. Chishti currently serves on the boards of directors of the National Immigration Law Center, the New York Immigration Coalition, and the Asian American Federation. He has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Immigration Forum and as a member of the Coordinating Committee on Immigration of the American Bar Association. Mr. Chishti has testified extensively on immigration policy issues before various Congressional committees. In 1992, as part of a U.S. team, he assisted the Russian Parliament in drafting its legislation on forced migrants and refugees. He is a 1994 recipient of New York State Governor s Award for Outstanding Asian Americans and a 1995 recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. His publications include: Testing the Limits: A Framework for Assessing the Legality of State and Local Immigration Measures (co-authored); America s Challenge: Domestic Security, Civil Liberties, and National Unity After September 11 (co-authored); Guest Workers in the House of Labor in the New Labor Forum; The Role of States in U.S. Immigration Policy in the NYU Annual Survey of American Law; Enforcing Immigration Rules: Making the Right Choices in NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy; A Redesigned Immigration Selection System in Cornell International Law; Employer Sanctions Against Immigrant Workers in WorkingUSA; and Rights or Privileges, in the special issue on the Promise of Immigration in the Boston Review. Mr. Chishti was educated at St. Stephen s College, Delhi; the University of Delhi; Cornell Law School; and the Columbia School of International Affairs.

6 6 Regan Cooper is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition (PICC), a coalition of fifty organizations that advocates for immigrants, migrants, and refugees in Pennsylvania. She monitors immigration related legislation at the local, state, and federal levels and engages community members and allies in promoting policies that welcome and sustain immigrants in Pennsylvania. Ms. Cooper oversees educational forums and trainings, and numerous advocacy initiatives. PICC s campaigns include New Citizens/New Voters, an initiative that has registered, educated, and mobilized over 8,000 new citizen voters in Pennsylvania. Ms. Cooper has a bachelor of arts from Vassar College, a master s degree in social science, and a master s degree in law and social policy, both from the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Prior to working with PICC, Ms. Cooper spent two years working with migrant farm workers and their families in eastern New York State. Marshall D. Fitz [Moderator] is Director of Advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Mr. Fitz leads AILA s education, lobbying, and coalition-building efforts in furtherance of fair and reasonable immigration-related policies. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and served on the Virginia Law Review. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Bruce M. Selya on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In the following years, he practiced immigration law in Washington, D.C., at Hogan & Hartson, LLP. David C. Koelsch is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Immigration Law Clinic and the Asylum Law Clinic at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. The Immigration Law Clinic represents low-income immigrants on a variety of legal issues, abandoned immigrant children, and abused immigrant women. Students also perform outreach services and work with the children of immigrant parents to mitigate the effects of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on immigrant communities. The Asylum Law Clinic represents asylum seekers in cooperation with Freedom House, a Detroit-based residential facility for asylum seekers. Professor Koelsch also teaches Immigration Law and Human Rights Law and created the upper-level Spirituality and the Law seminar, in which law students are

7 7 Penn State s Center for Immigrants Rights taught to use the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola to minimize stress and maximize positive client interactions. Professor Koelsch is a competitive masterlevel marathon runner. He earned his law degree at Catholic University of America and is a graduate of James Madison College at Michigan State University. Stephen H. Legomsky is the John S. Lehmann University Professor at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. He is the author of Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy (now in its fourth edition), which has been adopted as the required text for immigration courses at 169 U.S. law schools. His other books, published by the Oxford University Press, include Immigration and the Judiciary Law and Politics in Britain and America and Specialized Justice Courts, Administrative Tribunals, and a Cross-National Theory of Specialization. Professor Legomsky founded and has chaired the Immigration Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools. He has also chaired the Law Professors Committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Refugee Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association. He has testified before Congress several times and has been a consultant to President Clinton s transition team; President George H.W. Bush s Commissioner of Immigration; the Administrative Conference of the United States; the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; and several foreign governments on migration, refugee, and citizenship issues. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Professor Legomsky has been a Senior Visiting Fellow at Oxford University and a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University. He has had other teaching or research appointments in the United States, Mexico, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria, Australia, Suriname, and Singapore. Tara Magner [Moderator] is Director of Policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center. She previously worked as a counsel to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. During more than five years on Senator Leahy s committee staff, Ms. Magner handled matters relating to terrorism, enemy combatants, human rights, Freedom of Information Act, government secrecy, immigration, and refugee protection. Prior to working in the Senate, she served as Deputy Director of the Winston Foundation, a private foundation

8 8 that awarded grants on international human rights, refugee protection, and conflict resolution. She has published articles in the International Journal of Refugee Law and the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal. In the fall of 2007, Ms. Magner was appointed to serve as a Commissioner on the American Bar Association s Commission on Immigration. Ms. Magner also served as a member of President Obama s Transition Policy Working Group on Immigration. Nancy Morawetz is a Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law, where she has taught since She currently teaches in the Immigrant Rights Clinic (IRC). Professor Morawetz s recent writings include Rethinking Drug Inadmissibility, William and Mary Law Review; Citizenship and the Courts, University of Chicago Legal Forum; The Invisible Border: Restrictions on Short-Term Travel By Noncitizens, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal; INS v. St. Cyr: The Campaign to Preserve Court Review and Stop Retroactive Application of Deportation Laws, in Immigration Stories, David Martin and Peter Schuck; Determining the Retroactive Effect of Laws Altering the Consequences of Criminal Convictions, Fordham Urban Law Journal; Understanding the Impact of the 1996 Deportation Laws and the Limited Scope of Proposed Reforms, Harvard Law Review; and Rethinking Retroactive Deportation Laws and the Due Process Clause, New York University Law Review. Professor Morawetz is a graduate of Princeton University and NYU School of Law, where she served as Editor in Chief of the New York University Law Review. She is a former clerk to the Honorable Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Sarah Paoletti is a Clinical Supervisor and Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she founded and directs the Transnational Legal Clinic. From 2003 to 2006, she was a Practitioner-in-Residence in the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law, where she also taught a seminar on the labor and employment rights of immigrant workers. Her areas of expertise include international human rights, immigrant and migrant rights, asylum law, and labor and employment law. She has written on and presented on the applicability of international human

9 9 Penn State s Center for Immigrants Rights rights law to migrants, particularly migrants in the United States, before committees of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and at different conferences. Prior to joining the faculty at American University, she was a staff attorney at Friends of Farmworkers, Inc., a statewide legal services program serving migrant workers in Pennsylvania, where she was an Independence Foundation Public Interest Fellow and later a Skadden Fellow. From 1999 to 2000, she was a law clerk for the Honorable Anthony J. Scirica, U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit. She received her JD from American University Washington College of Law (summa cum laude) in 1998 and her BA from Yale University in Michele R. Pistone is a Visiting Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches in the International Human Rights Law Clinic and also teaches a course on comparative refugee and asylum law and policy. In the clinic, Professor Pistone supervises students in their representation of clients facing a range of legal challenges in the areas of human rights and immigrant rights. Professor Pistone comes to Washington College of Law from the Villanova University School of Law, where for the last nine years she has been Director of the Clinical Program and of the Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services (CARES). In 2006, Professor Pistone was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to develop and teach a new clinical course at the University of Malta. Students enrolled in the clinic represent some of the growing number of refugees seeking asylum in Malta. Professor Pistone s scholarship has focused on immigration, asylum, clinical education, and Catholic Social Thought. She is the author of Stepping Out of the Brain Drain: Applying Catholic Social Teaching in a New Era of Migration, with John Hoeffner, Lexington Books, 2007, in addition to many articles and book chapters. Professor Pistone serves on the International Advisory Board of the Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights, a peer-reviewed journal. Professor Pistone is Co-Chair of the American Bar Association s Committee on Clinical and Skills Education, a committee of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. In addition, she is serving on the Planning Committee for the Joint ABA, AALS, and CLEA Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility

10 10 (CLEPR) and on the Planning Committee for the AALS Clinical Section s program for the 2009 Annual Meeting. Professor Pistone also serves on the Advisory Board for the Georgetown Institute for the Study of International Migration- Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), Human Rights Promoters Project, and on the Board of Directors of the Iraqi Student Project, which aims to bring students whose higher education has been interrupted because of the war in Iraq to the United States to continue their education. From 2003 through 2005, Professor Pistone was also elected successively as Program Chair, Chair-Elect, and Chair of the AALS International Human Rights Law Section. Victor C. Romero [Moderator] is the Maureen B. Cavanaugh Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law at Penn State s Dickinson School of Law. A native of the Philippines, Professor Romero teaches and writes in the area of immigrant and minority rights. Professor Romero joined the Penn State faculty in 1995 after working in private practice and as a law clerk to a federal judge in California. An elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI), Professor Romero is coeditor of the anthology, Immigration and the Constitution, and author of Alienated: Immigrant Rights, the Constitution, and Equality in America. He also authored the recently released Everyday Law for Immigrants, a new guide on the U.S. immigration system for readers who are not lawyers. The guide is part of the Everyday Law Series by Paradigm Publishers. In addition to the course Immigration Law, Professor Romero teaches or has taught Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Equal Protection and Civil Rights, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Administrative Law, Torts, and Race, Racism and American Law. Professor Romero has served as President of both the South Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the ACLU and the NAACP of the Greater Carlisle Area. He has also served as a Visiting Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law and at the Rutgers-Camden School of Law. Professor Romero recently completed a two-year stint as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in University Park during academic years and

11 11 Penn State s Center for Immigrants Rights Paromita Shah is the Associate Director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. Prior to her current post, she was the Detention Project Director of Capital Area Immigrants Rights (CAIR) Coalition in Washington, D.C., from April 2003 to May Under this project, she conducted monthly legal rights presentations in regional county jails in Virginia for immigrants detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In addition to providing legal services to those individuals, Ms. Shah mentored and trained attorneys for direct representation, assessed and analyzed claims for relief requested by detainees, coordinated local advocacy efforts, and participated in liaison meetings with DHS and DOJ. From December 1998 through October 2002, she worked as a staff attorney in the Immigration Unit at Greater Boston Legal Services. Kareem W. Shora is National Executive Director for the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee (ADC). Mr. Shora, who joined ADC in 2000, is a recipient of the 2003 American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Arthur C. Helton Human Rights Award. He has been published by the National Law Journal; TRIAL Magazine; the Georgetown University Law Center s Journal on Poverty Law and Public Policy; the Harvard University JFK School of Government Asian American Policy Review; the American Bar Association (ABA) Air and Space Lawyer; and the Yeshiva University Cardozo Public Law Policy and Ethics Journal. A frequent guest on Al-Jazeera and numerous American television programs, Mr. Shora has spoken about civil rights, civil liberties, and immigration policy with many national and international media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Voice of America, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, the New Yorker, and the Chicago Tribune, among others. He has also testified before major international human rights bodies, including regular testimonies before the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the United Nations Human Rights Commission. He was selected by the Ford Foundation as a member of the Foreign Policy Task Force designing its 2008 Laboratory for New Thinking on Foreign Policy. He has also been selected by the Police Foundation to be part of its 2008 Advisory Board on the study of the role of local police in immigration enforcement. Mr. Shora is also the civil society representative on the G8

12 12 Experts Roundtable on Diversity and Integration. Born in Damascus, Syria, Mr. Shora is a native of Huntington, West Virginia, fluent in Arabic, and holds a JD from the West Virginia University College of Law and the LLM specialty in International Legal Studies from American University Washington College of Law. Carl Thorsen joined the American Continental Group as a Partner in 2005, bringing expertise and experience from Capitol Hill and the Department of Justice. His extensive legislative and legal knowledge provides the firm and clients with an influential resource. Mr. Thorsen specializes in matters before the House and Senate Judiciary committees and represents clients such as The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner Inc., the Motion Picture Association of America, the National Music Publishers Association, The Western Union Company, and the National Immigration Forum. Prior to joining American Continental Group, Mr. Thorsen served as General Counsel in the office of the U.S. House Majority Leader. He worked closely with the chairman and staff of the House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Committee on Homeland Security. In 2004, Mr. Thorsen spent five months working for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq, as the Senior Advisor for Border Enforcement to the Civilian Policing Advisory Training Team. In this capacity, he served on a team led by Coalition military officials primarily responsible for rebuilding the Iraqi Police Service and Border Police. From 2001 to 2002, Mr. Thorsen served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legislative Affairs. During this time, he was one of the Justice Department s key liaisons with Congress. Mr. Thorsen received the Attorney General s Award for Exceptional Service, the department s highest commendation, for his work on the Patriot Act of From 1999 to 2001, after service as Legislative Counsel to U.S. Representative Bill McCollum (R-FL) and U.S. Representative Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Mr. Thorsen served as Counsel to the House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, advising members of Congress and staff on legislative and policy issues related to the committee s legislative agenda. Mr. Thorsen earned a bachelor of science in political science with a minor in English literature from the University of Scranton, and a JD from the Temple University School of Law. Mr. Thorsen is a member of the Maryland Bar Association.

13 13 Penn State s Center for Immigrants Rights Rebekah Tosado currently serves as the Senior Advisor to the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Ms. Tosado provides leadership and advice in several critical areas, including the provision of medical care to immigration detainees and the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS). She has advised on such issues as expansion of the department s Expedited Removal authority and implementation of the recommendations by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General on the detention of aliens after September 11 (The September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks, June 2003). Ms. Tosado served as the first director of the Office s Review and Compliance Unit and in that capacity was responsible for overseeing the resolution of complaints alleging violations of civil rights and civil liberties. Prior to joining DHS, she was an Attorney Advisor in the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. Department of Education. She has also served as Legislative Counsel to former Congressman Carlos Romero-Barceló (PR), U.S. House of Representatives. She began her legal career as a law clerk in Massachusetts and as an attorney for children and youth in the juvenile justice system of Massachusetts. Ms. Tosado is fluent in Spanish. Homer Venters is a Public Health Fellow for the Centers for Disease Control as well as an attending physician at the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. Dr. Venters also sees detained victims of torture who are seeking asylum through Doctors of the World and conducts trainings for U.S. Department of Homeland Security asylum officers on the effects of torture. As a Fellow for the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Venters research involves health care for detained immigrants, a topic he has recently testified about before Congress. Dr. Venters first became involved in immigration health as a health volunteer in Peace Corps Togo. Since that time, Dr. Venters has worked with immigrants and internally displaced persons in Togo, France, Rwanda, Uganda, and New York. Dr. Venters most recent publications deal with public acceptance of torture in the United States and conditions of U.S. Department of Homeland Security detention. Dr. Venters recently became the Deputy Medical Director at Rikers Island Jail.

14 14 PENN STATE S CENTER FOR IMMIGRANTS RIGHTS Directed by Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Penn State s Center for Immigrants Rights is a new addition to Penn State s Dickinson School of Law. The work of the Center helps promote a modernized immigration Inaugural members of the Center for Immigrants Rights include Amala Abdur-Rahman 09, Susham Modi 10, Ronni Bright 09, Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Director, Joseph Palmerson 09, Johanna Montero 10, and Jennifer Romero 10 system that legally recognizes and affords due process to individuals entering or living in the United States to work, study, reunite with family, or acquire refuge from danger in their home countries. The mission of the Center is to represent immigrants interests through legal excellence, advocacy, education, and collaboration with key stakeholders and the community. The Center teaches law students the skills necessary to be an effective immigration advocate and attorney. Primarily through representation of organizations, students work on innovative advocacy and policy projects relating to U.S. immigration policy and immigrants rights. Students acquire essential practical and substantive knowledge of immigration lawyering and advocacy through project specific work, as well as a weekly two-hour class, readings, reflection papers, and case rounds of student projects.

15 15 Penn State s Center for Immigrants Rights Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia joined Penn State in July 2008 as Director of the Law School s new Center for Immigrants Rights and as a Clinical Professor of Law. She also teaches Asylum and Refugee Law and a clinical course on Immigration Law and Policy. Previously, Professor Wadhia worked for several years as Deputy Director for Legal Affairs at the National Immigration Forum, one of the nation s leading immigration advocacy organizations in Washington, D.C. During this time, Professor Wadhia was immersed in issues surrounding the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Post 9-11 executive branch policies impacting immigrant communities and was a voice in the debates surrounding comprehensive immigration reform. She provided legal expertise and analysis of legislative and regulatory proposals; engaged in direct advocacy with Congress and the administration; and led one of the nation s strongest non-governmental work groups on immigrant due process and civil liberties. Professor Wadhia has been honored by both the Department of Homeland Security Office for Inspector General and the Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and in 2003, she was named Pro Bono Attorney of the Year by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee. Professor Wadhia previously taught Immigration Law and Asylum and Refugee Law at Howard University School of Law and American University Washington College of Law ( ). Prior to joining the National Immigration Forum, Professor Wadhia was an attorney with Maggio Kattar, P.C. in Washington, D.C. While a student at Georgetown University Law Center, she served as an editor for the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal and as a research assistant to former INS General Counsel T. Alexander Aleinikoff. Professor Wadhia is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild and holds bar licenses in Maryland and New Jersey. Professor Wadhia conducted human rights work in India and South Africa before she began her legal career.

16 Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Director Center for Immigrants Rights Penn State s Dickinson School of Law Lewis Katz Building University Park, PA (cell) ssw11@psu.edu