Crimmigration Clinic

Sameer Ahmed is a clinical instructor at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. He also serves on the board of Project Citizenship, a nonprofit agency which provides high-quality free legal services to immigrants all over Massachusetts. Sameer was previously an assistant teaching professor at Northeastern University School of Law. Prior to that, he served as a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, where he specialized in immigrants’ rights litigation and policy advocacy. During that time, Sameer served on the board of the Orange County Justice Fund and the City of Santa Ana’s Sanctuary Policy Advisory Group. Sameer has also served as a senior litigation associate at WilmerHale and as a Skadden Fellow at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF). He has taught as an adjunct professor in the Immigrant Rights Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, and at the University of Maine School of Law. He clerked for Judge Kermit V. Lipez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He received a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Master’s Degree in Legal Research from Oxford University (where he was a Marshall Scholar), and a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from Stanford University.

Tiffany Lieu is the Albert M. Sacks Clinical Teaching and Advocacy Fellow at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. She supervises and trains students in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and in the Crimmigration Clinic on appellate and affirmative litigation as well as direct representation matters. Tiffany clerked for the Honorable Allyson K. Duncan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the Honorable Keith P. Ellison on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She was previously a Stanford Public Interest Fellow and staff attorney at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance. She holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. in History from Duke University.

Phil Torrey is the Managing Attorney of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, and a Lecturer on Law. At HLS, he directs the Crimmigration Clinic and he teaches a course concerning the intersection of criminal law and immigration law. The Crimmigration Clinic engages in cutting-edge litigation and policy advocacy concerning issues ranging from criminal bars to immigration relief to sanctuary city policies.  The Clinic also provides advice to criminal defense attorneys around the country concerning the immigration consequences of criminal charges. Torrey’s research focuses on the crime-based grounds of removal and immigration detention, including the private prison industry, and the immigration system’s mandatory detention regime.  Prior to joining HLS, Torrey worked as an attorney in the Immigration Unit of Greater Boston Legal Services and as a litigation associate at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. He received his B.A. from Colgate University and his J.D. with honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law.ptorrey@law.harvard.edu

Cindy Zapata is a Clinical Instructor in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, and a Lecturer on Law. She supervises and trains students in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and in the Crimmigration Clinic. She coordinates various community outreach efforts, including Know-Your-Rights presentations and Advice and Counsel sessions in the greater Boston area. As the supervising attorney for the HLS Immigration Project, a student-practice organization at HLS focused on immigration-related efforts and advocacy, she supervises students on various projects including removal defense, community outreach, and immigration applications. She was previously a litigation associate at Hughes Hubbard and Reed LLP. She holds a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law, and a B.A. in Political Science from Queens College – CUNY.