Detention, Deportation, and Due Process: A Look at the Inner Workings of the U.S. Immigration System
School: Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Semester: Fall 2025 & Spring 2026
Note: (first-year seminar, only open to undergrads)
The public discourse on immigration is widespread and divisive. If you ever wanted to know more about how our immigration system operates, its faults, and potential ways to fix it, then this seminar is for you. The goal of the seminar is to teach students in an interactive and welcoming environment the basic aspects of U.S. immigration policy, the role of lawyers in immigration advocacy spaces, and how to develop creative advocacy strategies to advance immigrants’ rights. The seminar will leverage the experience and expertise of faculty members with the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (“HIRCP”) to explore the multitude of ways immigration policies can be challenged and reshaped in Congress, the courts, and the public discourse.
We will address major themes and controversies in immigration and refugee law and policy advocacy, including: the origins and evolution of U.S. immigration law; the basis for refugee protection in the United States; the role of Congress, courts and administrative agencies; cutting-edge issues in U.S. asylum law, including issues related to gender-based claims, credibility & corroboration, expanding bars to asylum; current challenges at the U.S-Mexico border; the criminalization of immigrants; and the U.S. detention regime.This seminar is designed to create a welcoming and dynamic environment in which we can collectively interrogate how different modes of advocacy—from litigation and community organizing to media advocacy and direct representation—can move immigration law forward. The class will include simulations and other interactive classroom modules and will feature guest lectures from community partners and advocates with whom HIRCP has worked on various advocacy projects. We welcome opposing viewpoints, respectful discourse, and aim to create a space where differing perspectives can be explored.
