Talia Peleg is an Associate Professor of Law and the Co-Director of the Immigrant & Non-Citizen Rights Clinic at CUNY School of Law. She and her students represent non-citizens in all areas of the immigration system. Her scholarship and practice focus on combating the entanglement of the immigration and criminal legal systems, which has led to the devastating detention and deportation of hundreds of thousands of non-citizens. Professor Peleg and her students creatively advocate for their clients to be released from the grips of both the immigration and criminal legal systems so that they can live their lives free from governmental control and surveillance. Prior to teaching at CUNY, she was a Supervising Attorney in the Immigration Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS).
Professor Peleg began her work at BDS as a staff attorney in 2011. In 2013 she was one of four attorneys in New York City to help implement and shape the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) – a groundbreaking, first-in-the-nation universal representation program for detained immigrants – funded by the New York City Council. NYIFUP is now a fully-funded program representing detained clients at the Varick Street Immigration Court in New York City in bond hearings, merits hearings on their defenses to removal, and appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The program is being replicated in various localities throughout the country.
At BDS, she represented hundreds of non-citizens, most of whom had prior or current interaction with the criminal legal system. Through her practice, she developed substantial knowledge of criminal-immigration law, humanitarian defenses to removal, and challenges to removability. She has represented non-citizens in federal court litigation challenging the legality of their detention. She has also represented clients before the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in adjustment of status, citizenship, U-Visa, and other affirmative applications.
Professor Peleg is a proud graduate of the Immigrant & Non-Citizen Rights Clinic and CUNY School of Law.
