Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia

Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar
Director, Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic
Clinical Professor of Law

Expertise

Education

J.D., Georgetown University Law Center
B.A., Indiana University, with honors

Websites

Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic

Biography

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia is a nationally respected immigration scholar, law professor, author, and attorney. She joined Penn State Dickinson Law as a Clinical Professor of Law in 2008 and was named Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar in 2013.

In 2023, Professor Wadhia was appointed by President Biden as the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. There she led an office of 150+ people focusing on culture and mission excellence there. Wadhia’s leadership was critical to integrating civil rights and civil liberties across DHS, and advances in artificial intelligence, language access, human rights, combating gender-based violence, and racial equity, among other efforts. Professor Wadhia received the DHS Outstanding Service Medal from the Secretary in 2024 at the end of her tenure.

Professor Wadhia’s scholarship has focused on the role of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law and policy, and the intersection of immigration, race, and national security. Her work has more than 550 citations in law reviews or publications as well as several federal courts, including the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals. Professor Wadhia has published in Duke Law Journal, Emory Law Journal, Texas Law Review, Washington and Lee Law Review, Harvard Latino Law Review, Administrative Law Review, Howard Law Journal, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, University of Colorado Law Review, Cambridge University Press, and Columbia Journal of Race and Law, among others. She is the author of two award-winning academic press books by New York University Press; and co-author of a textbook on Immigration & Nationality Law by Carolina Academic Press.

Professor Wadhia has served as an expert witness, testified before Congress, and authored amicus briefs in her research areas. From 2019-2022, she served as the inaugural editor-in-chief of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Law Journal and, in 2019, served as the Enlund Scholar in Residence at DePaul University School of Law. Professor Wadhia was elected to the American Law Institute in 2021. In 2025, she was appointed as the co-author of the industry-leading immigration treatise, Immigration Law & Procedure, a 22-volume "Bible'' of immigration law that has been cited in over 450 federal court decisions in cases from across the U.S. circuit courts of appeals, federal district courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Professor Wadhia has taught law courses in immigration since 2005 and received the Elmer Fried Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Immigration Lawyers Association in 2019. She founded the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (CIRC) at Penn State Dickinson Law in 2008. Since then, Professor Wadhia has provided hundreds of students with clinical training in community outreach and education, pro bono legal support, and policy work, many of whom practice immigration law across the United States. CIRC was honored with the Excellence in Legal Advocacy Award in 2017 and Legal Organization of the Year in 2019.

Professor Wadhia’s practice includes building community and helping students reach their highest potential. She received the university-wide W. L. Marr International Faculty Kopp Award in 2023 and the Rosemary Schraer Mentoring Award in 2020; Mimi Barash Coppersmith Women in Leadership Award in 2020 from the Centre Foundation and Arnold Addison Award for Town and Gown Relations in 2019 from the Borough of State College. In 2020, she was named a Fastcase 50 Awardee, which honors 50 of "the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, & leaders." In 2022, Professor Wadhia received the President’s Commendation and the Michael Maggio Pro Bono Award by the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Professor Wadhia has long worked to advance inclusive excellence in the legal academy and beyond. She chaired the law school’s diversity committee for eight years and in 2014, helped to create and institutionalize the Minority Mentor Program at Penn State Law. From 2020-2023, Professor Wadhia served as the law school’s associate dean for diversity, equity & inclusion. During Wadhia’s tenure, she co-chaired the university-wide Student Code of Conduct Task Force, co-led the inaugural workshop for Asian American and Pacific Islander Women entering the legal academy, and led the design of a course on Law and (In)equity.

Professor Wadhia is a first-generation American and lawyer who began her career as an immigration attorney in private practice, where she represented individuals and families in citizenship, employment, family, humanitarian, and removal defense matters. After 9/11, she spent several years in the non-profit setting, drafting legislation, building coalitions with government officials and stakeholders, and developing policy on immigration law and policy reform.

Professor Wadhia holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. from Indiana University Bloomington.

Advanced Immigration Clinic
Asylum and Refugee Law
Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic: Course Component
Immigration Law

Academic Press Books

Migration, Exclusion and the American Dream (working title) (New York University Press, Forthcoming 2027).

Immigration and Nationality Law: Problems and Strategies, Third Edition (w. Lenni Benson) (Carolina Academic Press) (2026).

Immigration and Nationality Law: Problems and Strategies, Second Edition (w. Lenni Benson and Steve Yale-Loehr) (Carolina Academic Press) (2020).

Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump (New York University Press, 2021, paperback; 2019, hardcover).

Beyond Deportation: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases (New York University Press 2017, paperback; 2015, hardcover).

Articles in Law Reviews

__ Loy. U. Chi. L.J., Vol. __, Deference in Immigration After Loper Bright (forthcoming), (2026).

Georgetown Journal of National Security Law and Policy, Immigration, Due Process, and Executive Power (w. Peter Margulies), (2025).

Assessing Visions of Democracy in Regulatory Policymaking, (w. Chris Walker), Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 21, pp. 389-412, 2023, U of Michigan Public Law Research Paper No. 24-003, Penn State Law Research Paper No. 8-2023 (March 10, 2023).

Discretion and Disobedience in the Chinese Exclusion Era, 29 Asian Am. L. J. 49, (2022)

The Decitizenship of Asian American Women, (w. Margaret Hu), Col. L. Rev., Vol. 93 (2022).

The Case Against Chevron Deference in Immigration Adjudication, (w. Chris Walker), Duke Law Journal, Vol. 70, (2021). (selected contribution to fifty-first annual administrative law symposium)

Darkside Discretion in Immigration Cases, 72 Admin. L. Rev. 3. (2020).

National Security, Immigration and the Muslim Bans, 75 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1475 (2018).

Is Immigration Law National Security Law?, 66 Emory L.J. 669 (2017).

Beyond Deportation: Understanding Immigration Prosecutorial Discretion and United States v. Texas, 36 Immigr. & Nat’lity L. Rev. 94 (2015).

Demystifying Work Authorization and Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases, Colum. J. Race & L. 1 (2016).

The Aftermath of United States v. Texas: Rediscovering Deferred Action, Yale J. on Reg.: Notice & Comment Aug. 10, 2016 (2016).

The Rise of Speed Deportation and the Role of Discretion, 5 Colum. J. Race & L. 1 (2015).

Response, In Defense of DACA, Deferred Action, and the DREAM Act, 91 Tex. L. Rev.: See Also 59 (2013).

My Great FOIA Adventure and Discoveries of Deferred Action Cases at ICE, 27 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 245 (2013).

The Immigration Prosecutor and the Judge: Examining the Role of the Judiciary in Prosecutorial Discretion Decisions, 16 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 39 (2013).

Sharing Secrets: Examining Deferred Action and Transparency in Immigration Law, 10 U. N.H.L. Rev. 1 (2012).

Business as Usual: Immigration and the National Security Exception, 114 Penn St. L. Rev. 1485 (2010).

The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Law, 9 Conn. Pub. Int. L.J. 243 (2010) Reprinted in Immigration and Nationality Law Review, William S. Hein & Co.

In Expert Defense of DACA, Immigr. & Nat’y L. Rev. (2021) (with Kevin Johnson)

Immigration Litigation in the Time of Trump, 53 UC Davis L. Rev. Online 121 (2019).

Americans in Waiting: Finding Solutions for Long Term Residents, 46 J. Legis. 29 (2019).

Immigration Enforcement and the Future of Discretion, 23 Roger Williams Univ. L. Rev. 2 (2018).

The President and Deportation: DACA, DAPA, and the Sources and Limits of Executive Authority - Response to Hiroshi Motomura, 55 Washburn L.J. 189 (2016).

Remarks on Executive Action and Immigration Reform, 48 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 137 (2015).

The History of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Law, 64 Am. U. L. Rev. 101 (2015).

Immigration Remarks for the 10th Annual Wiley A. Branton Symposium, 57 How. L.J. 931 (2014).

Under Arrest: Immigrants’ Rights and the Rule of Law, 28 U. Memphis L. Rev. 853 (2008).

The Policy and Politics of Immigrant Rights, 16 Temp. Pol. & Civ. Rts. L. Rev. 387 (2007).

Immigration: Mind Over Matter, 5 U. Md. L.J. Race, Religion, Gender, & Class 201 (2006).

Book Chapters and Shorter Works

Cambridge University Press, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Immigration Law Opinions, Rewritten Opinion of Plyler v. Doe (2023)

“Migration and the American Dream” (in the Routledge Handbook of the American Dream), (2021).

COVID-19 and Immigration: Reflections From the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (w. Kaitlyn Box) in Frontiers Dynamics (2020).

“Immigration in the Time of COVID-19” (in the book “Law in the Time of COVID-19”), Columbia Law School (2020).

Carolina Academic Press, Book Chapter, “Dreams Deferred: Deferred Action, Prosecutorial Discretion, and the Vexing Case(s) of DREAM Act Students” in Law Professor and Accidental Historian (2017).

American Bar Association, “Who are the Players in Immigration Law?” in What Every Lawyer Should Know About Immigration Law (2012).

SAGE Publications, “The Term Illegal Alien,” in Debates on U.S. Immigration, (2012).

“The Ties that Bind: How U.S. Immigration Laws Value Long-Time Residency,” in American Immigration Council (2018)

A Legacy of Exclusion and Racism Followed the Tragedy of 9/11, Phila. Inquirer (Sept. 4, 2021)

Prosecutorial Discretion in a Biden Administration, Part 3, Yale J. on Reg.: Notice & Comment (June 5, 2021)

Prosecutorial Discretion in the Biden Administration: Part 2, Yale J. on Reg.: Notice & Comment (Feb. 18, 2021)

Prosecturial Discretion in the Biden Administration, Yale J. on Reg: Notice & Comment (Jan. 21, 2021)

Biden ends the ‘Muslim ban’ on day one of his presidency but its legacy will linger, Phila. Inquirer (Jan. 20, 2021)

“The Cruelty Is the Point”: U.S. Still Denying Protection to Severely Ill People With No Legal Status — Despite Announcing Otherwise, MS. Magazine (Sept. 28, 2020) (with Mahsa Khanbabai and Audrey Allen)

Stay off our Streets: Federal troops storming cities undermine American Ideals, Phila. Inquirer (July 22, 2020)

Banning Immigrants, ABA Human Rights Magazine (2020) (with Mahsa Khanbabai)

From the travel ban to the border wall, restrictive immigration policies thrive on the shadow docket, Scotusblog (Oct. 27, 2020)

American Immigration Lawyers Association, Prosecutorial Discretion, Practice Advisory (w. A. Gallagher and A. Nunez) (2017).

American Immigration Lawyers Association, The Long and Winding Road of Prosecutorial Discretion, Practice Advisory (w. L. Wildes and P. Taurel) (2015).

“Immigration Law’s Catch-22: The Case for Removing the Three and Ten-Year Bars,” in LexisNexis Legal Newsroom Immigration Law (LexisNexis, November 2014).

“Reflections on Prosecutorial Discretion One Year After the Morton Memo,” in Emerging Issues Analysis (LexisNexis, June 2012).

“Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Agencies: A Year in Review,” in Emerging Issues Analysis (LexisNexis, January 2012).

Immigration Policy Center, The Morton Memo and Prosecutorial Discretion: An Overview, (July 2011).

Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Council, Reading the Morton Memo: Federal Priorities and Prosecutorial Discretion, (December 2010).

“Letter to Lahore,” The Subcontinental Vol. 1, Issue 3 (2004) (with Sin Yen Ling).

Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team, Immigration Policy: Transition Blueprint for the Obama Administration, (2008) (contributor).

October 2025

Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia co-authors seminal textbook on immigration and nationality law

October 2025

Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia authors forthcoming piece on ‘Deference in Immigration’

October 2025