Sabrineh Ardalan

Sabrineh Ardalan is a clinical professor of law and director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. At the program, Ardalan supervises and trains law students engaged in deportation defense, district court and appellate litigation, and policy advocacy. She has authored briefs submitted to the Board of Immigration Appeals, as well as to the federal district courts, circuit courts of appeal, and U.S. Supreme Court on cutting edge issues in U.S. immigration and asylum law. She also oversees and collaborates closely with the clinic’s social work staff. She teaches courses on immigration and refugee law, strategic immigration litigation and advocacy, as well as on trauma, refugees, and the law, and on international labor migration.

Her scholarship focuses on asylum and refugee law, solitary confinement in immigration, surveillance of immigrants, and detention and deportation. Her work has been covered in major outlets, including the New York Times, LA Times, and Boston Globe, and she has published op-eds in The Atlantic, The Hill, and Cognoscenti, among other media outlets.

Prior to her work with the program, Ardalan clerked for Hon. Michael A. Chagares of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and Hon. Raymond J. Dearie, district judge for the Eastern District of New York. She previously served as the Equal Justice America fellow at The Opportunity Agenda, where she worked on advocacy around a right to health care under U.S. and international law and as a litigation associate at Dewey Ballantine LLP. She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in history and international studies from Yale College.

Clinic Work

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program has four components - the Immigration and Refugee Clinic, the Crimmigration Clinic, the HLS Immigration Project, and the Harvard Representation Initiative. In the Immigration and Refugee Clinic, students engage in cutting-edge litigation and advocacy to protect immigrants' rights and learn critical, trauma-sensitive, and client-centered lawyering skills. Students work directly with individuals held in immigration detention and facing removal and represent them in administrative and district court proceedings as well as in appellate litigation. Students also work closely with community-based organizations to tackle systemic immigrants' rights violations, including fast-track removals, solitary confinement of immigrants and other detention conditions, and challenges to the asylum system.