Rachel E. Rosenbloom
Professor of Law
Education
University of California, Berkeley, MA 1994
New York University, JD 2002
Bio
Professor Rosenbloom teaches and writes in the area of immigration law and policy. Her recent scholarship has focused on the intersection of criminal law and immigration law, the possibilities and limits of transnational legal advocacy in advancing the rights of deportees, and the role of race and immigration in the historical development of US citizenship law.
Prior to joining the law faculty, Professor Rosenbloom was a fellow at the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College, where she was the supervising attorney for the center’s Post-Deportation Human Rights Project. She has been widely quoted in the media on the wrongful detention and deportation of US citizens and permanent residents and testified on this subject at a 2008 congressional hearing before the House Subcommittee on Immigration. She has taught as an adjunct professor at Bentley University and is currently an affiliated faculty member of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College.
Professor Rosenbloom’s legal career includes practicing union-side labor law at the Boston firm Segal Roitman. From 2002 to 2004, she served as a law clerk to the Hon. Morris E. Lasker in US District Court. Prior to her legal career, Professor Rosenbloom was a research and advocacy associate at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, where she documented human rights violations based on sexual orientation, gender identity and HIV status.
Fields of Expertise
- Administrative Law
- Civil Rights
- Immigration Law
- Refugee and Asylum Law
Selected Works
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Unspoken Rules: Sexual Orientation and Women’s Human Rights (International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, 1995. Second edition, Cassell, 1996).
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- “Beyond Severity: A New View of Crimmigration,” 22 Lewis & Clark Law Review 663 (2018).
- “Federalism and Fundamental Rights: Safeguarding the Rights of Undocumented Immigrants in the United States and the European Union,” 4 Paix et Sécurité Internationales 13 (2016).
- “Policing Sex, Policing Immigrants: What Crimmigration’s Past Can Tell Us About Its Present and Its Future,” 104 California Law Review 149 (2016).
- “The Citizenship Line: Rethinking Immigration Exceptionalism,” 54 Boston College Law Review 1965 (2013).
- “Policing the Borders of Birthright Citizenship: Some Thoughts on the New (and Old) Restrictionism,” 51 Washburn Law Journal 311 (2012).
- “The Boston Principles: an Introduction,” 1 Notre Dame Journal of International, Comparative and Human Rights Law 145 (2011).
- “Remedies for the Wrongly Deported: Territoriality, Finality, and the Significance of Departure,” 33 University of Hawaii Law Review 139 (2011).
- “Will Padilla Reach Across the Border?” 34 New England Law Review 327 (2011).
- “Gone For Good? Seeking Reopening or Reconsideration After a Respondent has Departed the United States,” 13-14 Bender's Immigration Bulletin 1 (2008).
- “Beyond the “Immediate Custodian” Rule: Who is the Proper Respondent to an Immigration-Related Habeas Action?” 8 Bender’s Immigration Bulletin 853 (2003).
- “Is the Attorney General the Custodian of an INS Detainee? Personal Jurisdiction and the “Immediate Custodian” Rule in Immigration-Related Habeas Actions,” 27 NYU Rev. L. & Soc. Change 543 (2002).
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- “Commentary on United States v. Wong Kim Ark.” In Feminist Judgments: Immigration Law Decisions Rewritten, eds. K. Kim et al. (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
- “From the Outside Looking In: U.S. Passports in the Borderlands.” In Citizenship in Question: Evidentiary Birthright and Statelessness, eds. B.N. Lawrance and J. Stevens (Duke University Press, 2017).
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- “Birthright Citizenship Has Been Challenged Before,” TIME (January 15, 2025).
- “Allowing Texas Immigration Law Would Lead to “Total Chaos,” NU Law Expert Says,” Northeastern Global News (March 22, 2024).
- “Northeastern Immigration Law Expert Reacts to Supreme Court’s Ruling on ‘Remain in Mexico',” News@Northeastern (June 29, 2022).
- “Supreme Court Ruling on Martha’s Vineyard Man Could Change How Some Deportation Proceedings Are Initiated,” The Boston Globe (June 22, 2018).
- “A Win For Immigrants And Cloud Over Chevron At High Court,” Law360 (June 22, 2018).
- “Trump Signed an Executive Order to Stop Separating Families at the Border. but What Does It Actually Do?,” Northeastern News (June 21, 2018).
- “Separating Families at the Border Takes Harsh Immigration Enforcement Practices to a New Extreme,” LSE USAPP Blog (June 20, 2018).
- “Supreme Court Hears Case Involving Brazilian Immigrant Who Lives on Martha’s Vineyard,” The Boston Globe (April 23, 2018).
- “ICE Arrests at Courthouses Disrupt Justice, Lawsuits Claim,” The Boston Globe (March 16, 2018).
- “Ask a Feminist: Dolores Huerta and Rachel Rosenbloom Discuss Gender and Immigrant Rights,” Signs (January 26, 2018).
- “Morales-Santana and the Plenary Power Doctrine,” Human Rights at Home (June 15, 2017).
- “Lawrence And Chelsea Fight Trump: A Blueprint For Other Sanctuary Cities?,” WGBH News (April 4, 2017)
- “Trump May Be Backtracking on Immigration Ban, and That Could Be Smart,” The Boston Globe (February 10, 2017)
- "Law Professor: Trump's Immigration Policies Could Go down as Historic 'Moral Failing'," Northeastern News (January 30, 2017).
- “Student Interest in Immigration Law Rises With Recent Political Developments,” ABA Journal (November 2017).
- “Albright, Clintons, Kennedy Address CGI U Student on Refugees, Climate, Cooperation,” Northeastern News (October 18, 2017).
- “Symposium on Kerry v. Din: Due Process Rights, Beyond Marriage,” ImmigrationProfBlog (June 18, 2015).
- “Needed: Lawyers in Immigration Court,” The Boston Globe (June 25, 2014).
Rachel E. Rosenbloom
Professor of Law