Defending the Rights of Immigrants and their Families During a Time of Peril

Join Wasserstein Fellow Michelle Lapointe for a discussion of the current wide-ranging attacks on immigrant communities and how the administration has weaponized statutes, regulations, and informal policy guidance to create the most hostile environment for noncitizens in decades. Resisting those efforts–which is also an exercise in defending democracy–requires coordination among litigators, organizers, policy advocates, and communications experts. It also demands a long-term reimagining of the role of immigration and immigrants in our society, towards a vision of inclusion. Michelle will discuss her work over two decades of advocacy for immigrant communities across multiple presidential administrations, primarily in the Deep South, drawing on the courage and resilience of her clients–from those who harvest and process our food, to parents separated from their children and detained by ICE, to young people striving for higher education in states that have thrown every hurdle in their way.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below! Open only to the HLS community.

Michelle Lapointe (she/her) is the Legal Director at the American Immigration Council, where she leads impact litigation and oversees the Council’s legal advocacy to advance the rights of immigrants and promote a fair and just immigration system. Prior to joining the Council in 2024, Michelle served as a Deputy Legal Director at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), where she litigated immigrants’ rights cases and advocated for immigrant worker rights. At NILC, she served as co-lead counsel on a class action arising out of a worksite immigration raid, which resulted in a settlement of over $1 million. Michelle began her legal career and spent nearly 12 years at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. At SPLC, she represented farmworkers and guest workers in class and collective actions for unpaid wages and other employment violations, and litigated cases against federal and state officials for violations of immigrants’ civil rights. Michelle received her law degree from American University Washington College of Law in 2008, where she was a Public Interest/Public Service Scholar, and her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College.

If you or an event participant requires disability-related accommodations, please contact HLS Accessibility Services at accessibility@law.harvard.edu two weeks in advance of the event.