Crimmigration Clinic

Sameer Ahmed is a Senior Clinical Instructor in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program.  In 2023, Sameer was appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to serve as an Immigration Judge in the Boston Immigration Court and Chelmsford Immigration Court.  He served as an Immigration Judge until he returned to Harvard Law School in July 2025.  He has previously served as an assistant teaching professor at Northeastern University School of Law, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, a senior litigation associate at WilmerHale, and a Skadden Fellow at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.  Sameer has also taught as an adjunct professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law and 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.

Morgan Drake is a Clinical Teaching 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. She also supervises the HLS Immigration Project (HIP), a student-practice organization focused on immigration-related community engagement efforts and advocacy. Morgan was previously a Litigation Attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), where she protected the due process rights of detained noncitizens through appellate representation at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and federal courts. During her two-year Equal Justice Works Fellowship, Morgan did not lose a single case before the BIA. Morgan holds a J.D. From DePaul University College of Law (COL), where, through DePaul COL’s International Human Rights Law Institute, she co-presented an amicus brief to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights advocating for differentiated approaches for particularly vulnerable populations subject to detention throughout the Americas. Prior to law school, Morgan worked with detained unaccompanied minors as a paralegal and DOJ-Accredited Representative on NIJC’s Children’s Protection Project. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology and Spanish from Augustana College.

Tiffany Lieu is a Clinical Instructor 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 an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he has taught since 2011. He is also the Director of the Crimmigration Clinic at Harvard Law School and the Managing Attorney of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. 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.