Welcome
Raha Jorjani
Contact Information
rjorjani@ucdavis.edu
530-754-5892
Education
- J.D., City University of New York Law School 2005
- B.A. Peace and Conflict Studies, UC Berkeley 2000
Staff Attorney
Professor Raha Jorjani is a Supervising Attorney and Lecturer in the UC Davis School of Law Immigration Law Clinic. Since beginning her legal practice, she has defended immigrants from detention and deportation before the Immigration Courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and Federal Courts including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Jorjani’s scholarship focuses on the intersection between Immigration and Criminal Law. In addition to representing immigrants detained primarily on the basis of criminal convictions, she regularly advises and trains public defenders on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions. Professor Jorjani also provides technical assistance and training to members of the immigration bar on topics related to detention and deportation. Prior to joining the UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic in Fall 2007, she was a Staff Attorney with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona where she directly represented immigrants detained by the Department of Homeland Security in addition to providing pro-se legal assistance to hundreds of detainees who could not afford legal representation.
Full Biography...Before joining the Florence Project, Professor Jorjani worked with the Immigrant Defense Project and Families For Freedom in New York, investigating the operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Rikers Island Correctional Facility. She spearheaded an effort to introduce materials and training regarding immigration consequences of criminal convictions into the Rikers Island Law Libraries.
Since October 2009, Professor Jorjani has also served as In-House Immigration Counsel to the Alameda County Public Defender Office, a cutting-edge defender model that is one of the few of its kind being implemented in California. She continues to advocate for the rights of detained immigrants in legal, academic, community, and international forums across the country.
... CloseSpecial Interests
Clinical Legal Education, Ethnic Studies, Immigration Law And Policy, International Human Rights, International Law, Police And Policing, Prisoners Rights (See Also Civil Rights)Selected Publications
- "Ignoring the Court's Order: The Automatic Stay in Immigration Detention Cases", Intercultural Human Rights Law Review, St. Thomas University School of Law, Vol. 5 (2010). 5 Intercultural Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 89.
- “Locked Up: Criminal and Immigration Incarceration in America”, DePaul Journal For Social Justice, Vol. 4, Number 1 (Fall 2010).
- Brief Overview of DHS’s Automatic Stay Power in Detention Cases, AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association), 2010.
- Deportation and Detention, Working Paper for the Iranian American Bar Association, 2008
More Publications...- Briefing Paper on Mandatory, Prolonged, and Indefinite Detention, Submitted to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants (May 2007)
