Message from the Chairs

Welcome to the Immigration Litigation Committee’s website! We invite you to browse around and see the new items and to send us your suggestions for additional content. We'll be adding some updates soon on the state of immigration litigation now that Congress has failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform, but for now, suffice it to say that immigration litigation is a growing field as new state and local laws, stepped-up enforcement, and the government's failure to process cases in a timely manner have resulted in a lot of new litigation.

We expect this trend to continue, and the ABA will continue to press for reform. It has been over a year since the ABA House of Delegates adopted a package of immigration policies at the midyear meeting in February 2006. The topics covered by the new policies, which were sponsored by the ABA Commission on Immigration, included due process, comprehensive immigration reform, right to counsel, detention, administration of U.S. immigration laws, asylum, and protections for immigrant victims of crime. The Section of Litigation co-sponsored all seven of these resolutions which passed the House of Delegates unanimously. In addition, the Criminal Justice Section introduced a resolution supporting an increased pardon power and the ability of state and federal judges to make recommendations against deportation during sentencing proceedings. The House of Delegates approved that policy as well. Please follow the links on this web page and take a look at all seven of the Recommendations and supporting reports. The ABA will continue to advocate to incorporate these policies into law, despite the failure of comprehensive reform this past spring and summer. We urge you to familiarize yourself with these new ABA policies and share them with your legislators.

We are still accepting article submissions for our next issue of the newsletter, as well as proposals for subsequent issues. Contact Margaret Stock if you have ideas or would like to contribute.

Finally, Montserrat Miller has just joined the Committee as co-chair, now that Karen Grisez's term has expired. We thank Karen for her past leadership, commitment, and service to the Committee. Montserrat is a practicing immigration attorney at the law firm Greenberg Traurig where she is both a business immigration lawyer and also a lobbyist. She has worked on Capitol Hill as a counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee to Senator Dianne Feinstein, was in private practice prior to that, and started her law career as a litigator serving as a Trial Attorney for the former Immigration & Naturalization Service. She brings a lot of new ideas to the Committee, and we'll be posting news about those very soon.

We both look forward to a great year and hope you will join us by participating in the committee. If you are interested in chairing or co-chairing the newsletter, website, programs, membership or a new pro bono subcommittee, please let one of us know of your interest and ideas as soon as possible. Our next meeting for those interested in participating is in mid-September in Chicago. We’d like to start getting you involved in our work now!

Peter Asaad
Monserrat Miller
Co-Chairs, Immigration Litigation Committee