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Normalization of Cruelty as Immigration Policy
Sabrineh Ardalan, Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Abstract: Across administrations, immigration policy decisions have led to the normalization of cruelty in furtherance of restricting access to asylum and facilitating deportations. This project traces policy decisions in recent years that have normalized cruelty, including turn-backs at the border, unconscionable treatment of immigrants and refugees in detention, profiling and abuse of immigrants and refugees based on race and country of origin, and bans on access to asylum that would preclude many refugees from accessing the protections they desperately need. The project aims to center the experiences and testimonies of those who have been through the system to highlight the inequalities and injustices faced by immigrants and refugees.
Sabrineh Ardalan is director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. At the clinic, Ardalan supervises and trains law students working on applications for asylum and other humanitarian protections, as well as 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. asylum law. She also oversees and collaborates closely with the clinic’s social work staff. She teaches courses on immigration and refugee law and advocacy, as well as on trauma, refugees, and the law, and on international labor migration. Prior to her work with the clinic, 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.
