Nermeen Arastu

Nermeen Saba Arastu is a Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Immigrant & Non-Citizen Rights Clinic (INRC) at CUNY School of Law, where she has taught for over a decade. Her work bridges immigration law, racial and religious justice, disability justice, and experiential legal education, grounded in a sustained commitment to standing alongside immigrants most impacted by state violence, exclusion, and carceral systems.

Across her scholarship, teaching, and advocacy, Professor Arastu is known for developing frameworks that illuminate how legal systems assign worth, credibility, and belonging. She has a national reputation as an expert on racial and religious disparities in the U.S. immigration system, border asylum processing, immigration and disability, trauma-informed lawyering, and medical-legal collaborations. Her scholarship has appeared in leading journals including the UCLA Law Review, Harvard Human Rights Journal, and the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, and has informed federal litigation, amicus briefing, and advocacy efforts nationwide.

At CUNY Law, Professor Arastu co-directs a 16-credit, year-long immigration clinic and designed a one-of-a-kind 10-credit evening clinic serving part-time law students. She has led interdisciplinary collaborations with the CUNY School of Medicine and spearheaded empirical research with Physicians for Human Rights. In 2025, she received the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) Award for Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project, recognizing her development of a pioneering remote representation model reaching asylum seekers detained in remote facilities during the narrow, high-stakes window before credible fear interviews. Under her supervision, students provided time-sensitive legal guidance addressing barriers related to language access, disability, trauma, and medical needs, while modeling justice-oriented lawyering.

Professor Arastu regularly trains practitioners, presents at national and international conferences, and serves as an expert witness in federal litigation challenging discriminatory immigration policies, including Wagafe v. Biden. Her writing and public commentary have appeared in Newsweek, Slate, City Limits, and The Washington Post, among other outlets.

She serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-chairs the Awards Committee of the Association of American Law Schools. She previously served as Program Director of CUNY’s Advanced Certificate in Immigration Law and as Co-Chair—and former Scholar—of the AALS Clinical Section’s Bellow Scholars Program.

Prior to joining CUNY’s faculty, she worked as a litigation associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and as a staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, where she led immigrant rights and post-9/11 civil liberties work. She received her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.