Sameer Ahmed
Background:
Sameer Ahmed is a Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.
Sameer specializes in immigrants' rights litigation and policy advocacy. His work includes challenging federal immigration national security policies that discriminate against Muslim immigrants in Wagafe v. Trump, ensuring mentally ill immigrants have access to counsel in removal proceedings in Franco v. Sessions, protecting the rights of DACA recipients in IEIYC v. Duke, and advocating on behalf of immigrants in Orange County, California.
Prior to joining the ACLU, Sameer served as a senior litigation associate at WilmerHale in Boston. Previously, Sameer was awarded the Skadden Fellowship and served as a staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) in New York City, where he litigated a variety of federal civil rights and immigration cases. In 2009, Sameer and his colleagues received the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award for their work uncovering Operation Frontline, a secret national security program targeting Muslim immigrants around the 2004 presidential election.
Sameer has also served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maine School of Law and a law clerk to Judge Kermit V. Lipez of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and to Chief Judge Patti B. Saris of the District of Massachusetts.
Sameer is a graduate of Yale Law School. As a Marshall Scholar, Sameer received master's degrees from Oxford University in Legal Research and the School of Oriental and African Studies in Middle East Politics. He received his bachelor's degree with honors from Stanford University.