The SCOTUS Immigration Cases

Please join our faculty panelists—Jayashri Srikantiah, Lucas Guttentag and Brian Fletcher—for a discussion of the immigration cases the Supreme Court will decide during the 2019-20 term. The Court granted cert for eight immigration cases (Barton v. Barr, Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, Kansas v. Garcia, Monasky v. Taglieri, Nasrallah v. Barr, Pereida v. Barr, and United States v. Sineneng-Smith), more than in any term in recent history. Among the most significant issues the Court will decide are the lawfulness of the Trump Administration’s rescission of DACA, the constitutionality of a federal law criminalizing the act of encouraging or inducing illegal immigration for commercial advantage or private financial gain, and whether immigrants can challenge an expedited removal order in court.

Jayashri Srikantiah is the founding director of Stanford Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. She was was named Associate Dean of Clinical Education and Director of the Mills Legal Clinic in the spring of 2019. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2004, Professor Srikantiah was the associate legal director of the ACLU of Northern California and a staff attorney at the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. She has represented scores of immigrants facing removal from the United States, with a focus on representing immigrants with past criminal convictions. Professor Srikantiah has conducted impact litigation, community outreach, public education, and policy advocacy in partnership with a broad range of immigration non-profits, on issues ranging from immigration detention to protections for immigrant survivors of domestic violence. She has litigated numerous cases in the immigration courts, the federal district courts, the federal courts of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lucas Guttentag is Professor of the Practice of Law at Stanford Law School. He is the founder and former national director of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project, which he led from 1985 to 2011. He has litigated complex civil rights, class action, and constitutional cases in courts throughout the United States, including successfully arguing in the Supreme Court. In 2017, he returned to Stanford Law after serving in the Obama administration, most recently as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.

Brian Fletcher is a Visiting Clinical Professor of Law in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. He previously served for five years as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice. During his tenure in the Solicitor General’s Office, Brian argued 11 cases before the Supreme Court, briefed 20 cases on the merits, and filed more than 125 certiorari-stage briefs. Before joining the Solicitor General’s Office, Brian was a member of the Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Practice at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP in Washington, D.C. In addition, from 2011-2013, he served as an Associate Counsel to the President in the Office of the White House Counsel.

Sponsored by the American Constitution Society (ACS), the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (IRC) and Stanford Advocates for Immigrants’ Rights (SAIR). Lunch will be served.