Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia
Clinical Professor
Director, Center for Immigrants' Rights
Education:
J.D., Georgetown University Law Center
B.A., Indiana University, with honors
Immigration law expert Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia is the founder/director of Penn State’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights, an immigration policy clinic where students produce practitioner toolkits, white papers, and primers of national impact on behalf of client organizations. Under Professor Wadhia’s leadership, the Center has also hosted symposia with nationally recognized scholars, judges and lawyers on emerging immigration issues. Professor Wadhia researches the role of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law; the association between detention, removal and due process; and the intersection between immigration, national security, and race. Professor Wadhia teaches or has taught asylum and refugee law, immigration law, and a clinical course on immigration law and policy.
Prior to joining Penn State Law, Professor Wadhia was deputy director for legal affairs at the National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C., where she worked on issues surrounding the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and “post 9-11” executive branch policies impacting immigrant communities. Professor Wadhia has been honored by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Inspector General and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and in 2003, she was named Pro Bono Attorney of the Year by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee. She has also been an associate with Maggio Kattar, P.C. in Washington, D.C., where she litigated asylum, deportation, and employment-based immigration benefits matters.
Professor Wadhia serves on the ABA Commission on Immigration and is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers’ Guild. Professor Wadhia previously served on the boards of the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center and Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Unions. Prior to embarking on a legal career, she conducted human rights work in India and South Africa.
Contact Information:
E-mail: ssw11@psu.edu
Phone: (814) 865-3823
Principal Office: University Park
Papers Available via SSRN
Curriculum Vitae
Selected Publications:
Law Reviews
Sharing Secrets: Examining Deferred Action and Transparency in Immigration Law, New Hamp. L. Rev. 2012
Business As Usual: Immigration and the National Security Exception, Penn State L. Rev. 2010
William S. Hein & Co., Inc., Immigration and Nationality Law Review, The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Law, (previously published in Connecticut Public Interest Law Review), 2010
The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Law, Connecticut Pub. Int. L. J.,2010
Under Arrest: Immigrants’ Rights and the Rule of Law, U. Memphis L. Rev., 2008
The Policy and Politics of Immigrant Rights, Temple Pol. & Civil Rts. L. Rev., 2007
Immigration: Mind Over Matter, U. Maryland L. J. Race, Religion, Gender & Class, 2006
Book Chapters and Essays
American Bar Association, What Every Lawyer Should Know About Immigration Law, chapter titled “Who are the Players in Immigration Law,” forthcoming 2012
LexisNexis Emerging Issues Analysis, Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Agencies: A Year in Review, January 2012
Sage Publications, Debates on U.S. Immigration, chapter on the term “Illegal Alien”, Forthcoming 2012
Immigration Policy Center, The Morton Memo and Prosecutorial Discretion: An Overview, July 2011
Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Council, Reading the Morton Memo: Federal Priorities and Prosecutorial Discretion, December 2010
