The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Clinic’s mandate is to support Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and all other communities in the New York City area and beyond that are targeted by local, state, or federal government agencies under the guise of national security and counterterrorism.

Our work is defined by our relationships with communities and movements whose members wish to shape and respond to law enforcement policies and practices affecting them. CLEAR’s community-oriented and movement-building approach combines free legal representation with other services directed at satisfying the fuller range of community concerns.

CLEAR provides three primary services free of charge: legal representation and consultation; know-your-rights workshops; and support for community organizing.

CLEAR is the only organization in the larger New York City area that systematically provides this range of support and services free of charge.

Faculty

  • Naz Ahmad
    Interim Director and Staff Attorney, CLEAR
    Naz Ahmad represents individuals who are approached for questioning by local and federal law enforcement, targeted for surveillance, are placed on federal Watch Lists or who have had immigration benefits withheld from them on national security grounds, and Yemeni-Americans who have had their passports wrongfully revoked by the Department of State. She received her law degree from Columbia Law School in 2014, where she was a member of the Human Rights Clinic. As a member of the Clinic, she worked with the co-authors of the Columbia Human Rights Institute/Human Rights Watch report on federal terrorism investigations and prosecutions, Illusion of Justice.  She also interned at the ACLU Center for Democracy, Amnesty International, Sanctuary for Families, and The Bronx Defenders.
  • Ramzi Kassem
    Founding Director of CLEAR, Professor of Law
    Ramzi Kassem is a Professor of Law at the City University of New York, where he founded and co-directs CLEAR. His writing, teaching, and clinical legal practice grapple with the expressions and excesses of the sprawling U.S. security state. From 2022 to 2024, Professor Kassem served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the White House. He has argued constitutional, criminal, and national security cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, in the federal courts of appeals (including en banc) and district courts, at the Military Commission at Guantànamo Bay, and in immigration courts. Professor Kassem is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Freedom Scholar. View Ramzi Kassem's full bio.
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