Adina Appelbaum, Esq.

Program Director, Immigration Impact Lab

Adina created and leads the Immigration Impact Lab, CAIR Coalition's first-ever federal courts and appellate impact litigation project. She has litigated several individual and class action impact cases on behalf of immigrant adults and children who are detained and facing deportation involving asylum law, due process and detention, and the intersection of criminal and immigration law, including Bah v. Barr, et al. No. 1:19-CV-641, 2019 WL 4247823 (E.D. Va. Sept. 6, 2019), Obando-Segura v. Whitaker, No. GLR-17-3190, 2019 WL 423412 (D. Md. Feb. 1, 2019), Martinez v. Sessions, 892 F.3d 655 (4th Cir. 2018), Mauricio-Vasquez v. Whitaker, 910 F.3d 134 (4th Cir. 2018), and Mauricio-Vasquez v. Crawford, No. 1:16-cv-01422 (AJT), 2017 WL 1476349 (E.D. Va. Apr. 24, 2017). As an adjunct professor, Adina co-taught a seminar on the intersection of criminal and immigration law at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law.

From 2015-2017, Adina was an Equal Justice Works Fellow sponsored by the Arnold & Porter Foundation at CAIR Coalition, where she created and led the Crim-Imm Pro Bono Project to expand access to counsel trained in the intersection of criminal and immigration law and impact litigation to defend detained immigrants facing deportation due to convictions. For this Project, Forbes highlighted her in its 30 under 30 Law and Policy list.

Adina graduated from Georgetown University Law Center with joint Juris Doctor and Master of Public Policy degrees, a Certificate in Refugee & Humanitarian Emergencies, and as a Public Interest Law Scholar and Global Law Scholar.  She represented clients at Georgetown Law's Center for Applied Legal Studies Asylum Clinic and Juvenile Justice Clinic and completed legal internships at the Arlington Immigration Court, CAIR Coalition, the Maryland Office of the Public Defender Immigration Program, the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and Asylum Access Ecuador.

 Prior to law school, Adina was a Fulbright Scholar in Cairo, Egypt, where she provided legal aid to refugees fleeing persecution from across Africa and the Middle East. She holds a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in Urban Studies and International Area Studies and is admitted to practice law in Virginia, the District of Columbia, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

 

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