Professor Anil Kalhan will present his paper, “Deferred Action, Supervised Enforcement Discretion, and the Rule of Law Basis for Executive Action on Immigration” at the South Asian Legal Academics Workshop in Los Angeles.

The article, published in the UCLA Law Review Discourse in 2015, examines distortions and incorrect claims made by critics of President Obama’s Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiatives.  

In particular, the article critiques a ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the Southern District of Texas, noting that it incorrectly asserts that the president’s initiatives provide legal status to those who lack lawful immigration status.  The article argues for a careful assessment of the complex relationships between enforcement priorities, prosecutorial discretion and the rule of law in an era of mass deportation.

An expert on immigration law and comparative constitutional law, Kalhan has written and spoken extensively about the criminalization of immigrants. He is chair of the New York City Bar Association's International Human Rights Committee.

Kalhan served on the planning committee of the inaugural South Asian Legal Academic Workshop, which was held last year at the University of California-Irvine.