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Nermeen Arastu is an Associate Professor of Law and the Co-Director of the Immigrant & Non-Citizen Rights Clinic at the CUNY School of Law. She and her students represent non-citizens through all aspects and postures of the immigration system with the express mission of representing those who are most marginalized. Her writing, scholarship, and advocacy focus on racial and religious disparities in our nation’s immigration adjudication and enforcement. Most recently her writing & scholarship have been published in the UCLA Law Review, Newsweek, City Limits & Slate.
Prior to joining CUNY’s faculty, Nermeen was a litigation associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, LLP, and a staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF). At AALDEF, Nermeen led the Immigrant Rights Program and Post-9/11 Civil Liberties Project. Through the course of her pro bono work at Simpson Thacher and tenure at AALDEF, Nermeen managed an immigration docket which included deportation defense, suppression, asylum, citizenship and green card interviews, and various other immigration processes. Additionally, while at AALDEF, she oversaw monthly immigration clinics in conjunction with various community-based organizations, litigated matters relating to zoning and houses of worship, addressed anti-Muslim bias in the immigration system, and advocated against racial and religious profiling and law enforcement surveillance.
Nermeen has also worked at the Legal Assistance Centre of Namibia and in the Immigrant Women Program at Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense) where she focused on policy relating to gender-based violence. Nermeen is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.