Policy changes brought by the Biden Administration reintroduced Prosecutorial Discretion (PD) as an option for immigrant advocates. The University of Houston Law Center’s Immigration Clinic will introduce and explain how to effectively use PD in the immigration context—which can be an incredibly impactful, beneficial, and efficient option to pursue on behalf of clients with disparate case types and/or procedural postures. During the CLE, UHLC Clinic Attorneys will discuss PD’s benefits, considerations, and best practices based upon practice experiences.
1 Hour of TX CLE Credit; CLE information to be provided during presentation
Professor Hoffman specializes in immigration-related federal court litigation, deportation defense, asylum cases, and appeals before the Board of Immigration Appeals. He has represented numerous immigrants in a variety of settings including before the Executive Office for Immigration Review, Department of Homeland Security, and in the federal courts. Professor Hoffman served as co-counsel before the Supreme Court of the United States in the precedent-setting immigration case, Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder. He is co-chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee at UHLC, as well as a founding member of the Board of Editors for the AILA Law Journal. Professor Hoffman comments on immigration law and policy. He has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Mother Jones, Reuters, Bloomberg News, Houston Chronicle, among other outlets. He has published articles in the following representative law reviews, Maryland Journal of International Law, Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice at the University of Iowa, Houston J. of Int’l Law-Sidebar, Houston Law Review-Online, Nova Law Review, Loyola L.A. Int’l and Comparative L.J. He also has published pieces in Salon.com, Jurist, Immigration Professor’s Blog, Lexis Nexis Immigration Legal News, Notice and Comment, a blog from the Yale Journal on Regulation, among other venues. Prior to joining the Clinic, he practiced immigration law at Kurzban Kurzban Weinger & Tetzeli, P.A. in Miami, Florida. Previously, he taught at the University of Illinois, Tulane Law School and the University of Miami. In addition to his practice and teaching experience, Professor Hoffman served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Paul V. Gadola, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan for a two-year term. In 2016, Professor Hoffman received the Ethel M. Baker Faculty Award for community service. In 2015, Professor Hoffman received the University of Houston Teaching Excellence Award, a University-wide award established by the UH Provost. In 2015, he was awarded the Certificate of Excellence for service to the Law Center and University. In 2014, Professor Hoffman received AILA's Elmer Fried Excellence in Teaching Award. The UHLC immigration clinic under Professor Hoffman’s leadership was awarded the Pro Bono Hero Award for the Central Region by AILA for 2015.
Lucas Aisenberg is a Clinical Supervising Attorney in the Immigration Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center. He received a B.A. in Political Science at the University of Houston and a J.D. from St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami Gardens, Florida. In his current position in the Immigration Clinic, Professor Aisenberg supervises law students on pro bono asylum cases and provides direct representation to adult immigrants and unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the United States. Prior to joining the Immigration Clinic, Professor Aisenberg was a staff attorney at Catholic Charities Community Services Unaccompanied Minors Program in New York City. At Catholic Charities, he provided direct representation to unaccompanied minors detained in Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters, as well as non-detained clients in Immigration Court and before the New York and New Jersey Asylum Offices.
Professor Parker Sheffy is a staff member of the Law Center’s award-winning Immigration Clinic. His work encompasses representing indigent individuals with immigration-based legal cases while simultaneously supervising and teaching law students in connection with those very cases. Mr. Sheffy represents clients with disparate immigration-based needs, including issues at the intersections of family law and immigration law, as well as criminal law and immigration law. He is active within the Greater-Houston immigration legal services community and contributes scholarship to the field. Prior to joining the Law Center in Spring 2022, Mr. Sheffy worked as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at Cardozo School of Law in New York City. He began his career in legal education at the University of Houston Law Center as a Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Immigration Clinic in the fall of 2019. He has been published in an academic law journal and contributes to local and national media coverage pertaining to immigration based legal and policy issues.
