Immigration law expert discusses executive power in immigration law

With immigration reform prominent in news and politics, Penn State Law Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar and clinical law professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia will discuss executive power in immigration law as part of a panel at the ninth annual Homeland Security Law Institute on August 22 in Washington, D.C. Her talk will focus on separation of powers concerns and procedural obligations under administrative law.

“As the world waits for action by the administration on immigration, the timing of this panel is important for delivering quality information about the legal scope of executive authority to apply prosecutorial discretion,” said Wadhia, Director of the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic. 

Wadhia is a nationally recognized scholar of immigration law whose research focuses on the role of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law; the association between detention, removal and due process; and the intersection between immigration, national security, and race.  

The panel will examine how, as Congress continues to argue for different immigration reform policies, there is heightened attention to the president’s power over immigration law. Those on all sides of the immigration reform debate are looking to the executive branch and are examining the possibilities and limits surrounding executive authority to enforce immigration law.

Joining Wadhia on the panel are Jill Family, professor and director of the Law & Government Institute at Widener University School of Law, Esther Olavarria, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Policy, and Margaret D. Stock, immigration lawyer and counsel with Cascadia Cross-Border Law.