Harvard Law School alum Margaret Stock ’92 is one of 24 recipients of the 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, more commonly known as the MacArthur “Genius Award.” Stock is an immigration attorney with a focus on improving the immigration system through direct representation, policy-based advocacy and an emphasis on the idea that immigration does not threaten national security.
Stock has opposed punitive efforts against immigrants and worked with the state and federal government to create improved methods of immigration reform. During her time at HLS, Stock was involved with the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic.
Currently an attorney with the Anchorage office of Cascadia Cross Border Law, she retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Police, U.S. Army Reserve in 2010, after 28 years of service. She served on the faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point from 2001 until 2010, and was counsel to the firm Lane Powell from 2010 to 2013.
Stock’s experience working in the U.S. Army Reserve and teaching at West Point led her to focus on the impact of immigration law on military personnel and their families. She has spearheaded several programs that work creatively with existing laws to improve the lives of immigrants and native-born military personnel. These programs include the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) MAP program, which pairs volunteer attorneys across the United States with those in need of their services, and the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program, which allows the U.S. armed forces to attract and retain foreign nationals with language, medical, and other skills critical to military readiness and national security by expediting their path to citizenship.
Stock, who moved to Anchorage as a military policeman in 1986, has been writing about the connection between immigration and national security for years. She is the author of “Immigration Law and the Military” (American Immigration lawyers Association, 2012).
In an interview with the Anchorage Daily Times, she said: “… [A]fter 9/11, we looked at it the wrong way. We looked at it as, we need to keep people out of the United States to be safe, and what we really needed to do was think about letting the right people in to make us safer.”
Stock received an A.B. ’85, J.D. ’92 and M.P.A. ’01 from Harvard University and an M.S.S. ’06 from the U.S. Army War College.
MacArthur Fellows each receive a no-strings-attached stipend of $625,000 (increased from $500,000) paid out over five years. Without stipulations or reporting requirements, the Fellowship provides maximum freedom for recipients to follow their own creative vision.