Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia is the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where she ensures the Department's policies uphold civil rights and liberties. She is also the founding director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (CIRC) at Penn State Law, where she previously served as Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar. Wadhia’s research centers on prosecutorial discretion in immigration law and the intersections of race, national security, and immigration.

Wadhia is the author of Beyond Deportation: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases (New York University Press, 2015) and Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump (New York University Press, 2019). Her scholarly articles have appeared in leading law journals and have been cited by federal courts. She has also testified before Congress on civil rights issues affecting Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities.

Wadhia has served as a consultant for organizations such as UNICEF and the National Immigration Forum and has been an active advocate for immigrant rights. She has received numerous honors, including the Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Fastcase 50 Award for legal innovation. Wadhia earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and her B.A. from Indiana University Bloomington.