People

Philip L. Torrey

Director

Philip L. Torrey is the Director of Crimmigration and the Managing Attorney of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC) as well as a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. In those capacities, he supervises the Crimmigration Clinic at HIRC. The Crimmigration Clinic engages in federal appellate litigation in the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and state courts of appeals as well as policy advocacy and direct representation. The Clinic’s litigation efforts have focused on issues concerning “sanctuary” cities, the proper legal standard for determining when a criminal conviction triggers a specific ground of removal, and the crime-based bars to asylum and other forms of humanitarian protection. Torrey’s research focuses on the intersection of criminal law and law and immigration detention, including the immigration system’s mandatory detention regime, and the private prison industry. His scholarship has been published in law journals, practitioner guides, and online fora such as the Harvard Law Review, Michigan Journal of Law Reform, the Harvard Latinx Law Review, the Immigration and Nationality Law Review, Harvard Law Review for Civil Rights-Civil Liberties, Harvard Law and Policy Review. He is also frequently quoted in major media outlets including the Washington Post, Boston Globe, U.S. News and World Report, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, and National Public Radio. Previously, Torrey was an attorney in the Immigration Unit of Greater Boston Legal Services and as a litigation associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

ptorrey@law.harvard.edu

Cindy Zapata

Clinical Instructor

Cindy Zapata is a Clinical Instructor in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. She supervises and trains students in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and in the Crimmigration Clinic. In the Crimmigration Clinic, she focuses mainly on direct representation, including bond representation and immigration applications. She coordinates various community outreach efforts, including Know-Your-Rights presentations and Advice and Counsel sessions in the greater Boston area. She also serves as the supervising attorney for the HLS Immigration Project (HIP), a student-practice organization at HLS focused on immigration-related efforts and advocacy. She was previously a litigation associate at Hughes Hubbard and Reed LLP. She holds a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law, and a B.A. in Political Science from Queens College – CUNY.

czapata@law.harvard.edu

Jordana Arias

Program Administrator

Jordana Arias is the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program’s Program Administrator. She relocated from Washington, D.C. where she worked at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clark School of Law for nearly ten years. While there, she also served as a community organizer and volunteered for several pro-immigrant non-profit organizations and faith-based groups where she worked closely with at-risk communities. She is passionate about helping people – especially those in underprivileged and disenfranchised populations.

jarias@law.harvard.edu