News

A coalition of leading civil rights scholars, legal advocates, and nonprofit organizations filed an amicus curiae brief on August 12, 2025 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in support of a constitutional challenge to Arkansas’s alien land laws—Act 636 and Act 174. These laws, which restrict land ownership by so-called “foreign parties” or “foreign-party businesses,” have been criticized for discriminating on the basis of race and national origin and conflicting with federal immigration law. Read full statement here.

News reports of noncitizens unexpectedly being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have dominated headlines in recent weeks. Those being detained include noncitizens who hold lawful permanent residency status. One story concerns the March 8, 2025, arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and recent Columbia University graduate, who was initially detained in New Jersey and transported to Louisiana. He remains there while he challenges his detention and the immigration judge’s April 11 decision that he can be deported And on March 25, ICE agents arrested Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University, while she was walking […]

      Students should submit their resume, list of references, and a brief writing sample as one pdf document to Jason Hernandez at Jason.c.hernandez@rutgers.edu by May 5, 2023. Finalists will be interviewed the week of May 15, 2023, and we anticipate making final selection by May 22, 2023.

NEWARK – The state directive limiting cooperation by New Jersey police agencies with federal enforcement of civil immigration violations slightly reduced the number of people going from jails to federal custody and deportation though isn’t being followed consistently, says a new report out of Rutgers Law School. A study released at a Tuesday symposium said the number of removals of unauthorized immigrants through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was down slightly in 2020 for people with the most serious convictions and basically level for people without them. There was a notable decline in removals through the Secure Communities fingerprint and […]

Prepared Remarks in Support of A4225 New Jersey Assembly July 20, 2020  Rose Cuison-Villazor Vice-Dean, Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar and Professor of Law Director, Center for Immigration Law, Policy and Justice   My name is Rose Cuison-Villazor and I am the Vice-Dean and Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School in Newark and I teach, research and write about immigration law.  I am also the founding Director of the Center for Immigration Law, Policy and Justice.  The Center for Immigration Law explores and supports the adoption of equitable and more inclusive laws, regulations, policies, and practices for all people, citizens […]