The U.S. President and Immigration Law

Yale professor Cristina Rodríguez—a leading scholar of constitutional law, immigration law, and immigration policy—will open Smith College’s 2019-20 Presidential Colloquium series with a talk on “The President, Immigration Law and the Politics of Constitutional Structure.”

The event, which takes place at 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, in the Campus Center Carroll Room, is open to the public at no charge.

The talk is being held in conjunction with Smith’s observance of Constitution Day.

About Cristina Rodríguez

Cristina Rodríguez is the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her research interests include constitutional law and theory; immigration law and policy; administrative law; and citizenship theory. She is currently completing a book manuscript, with Adam Cox, titled “The President and Immigration Law,” which will be published by Oxford University Press. The book considers how the president has used his enforcement power in immigration and beyond to shape regulatory and social policy. 

A member of the faculty at New York University School of Law from 2004 to 2012, Rodríguez has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Stanford and Columbia law schools. From 2011 to 2013, she served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice, where she advised the White House, attorney general and executive branch agencies on the scope of their legal authority to act. 

Rodríguez is a non-resident fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She earned her bachelor’s and J.D. degrees from Yale and attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a master’s degree in modern history. After law school, Rodríguez clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.

About Smith’s Presidential Colloquium Series

The Presidential Colloquium regularly features influential thought leaders in a wide range of fields—from poets and writers to economists and policy experts—to share their expertise, offer insights and inspire discourse on key social, political and global topics that call for our attention. Lectures are free and open to the public.

This year’s other Presidential Colloquium speakers include Emmy and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy ’02, author Kwame Anthony Appiah, environmental scholar Regina McCarthy and Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative.

About Constitution Day

Held annually on September 17, Constitution Day is a federal observance that commemorates the signing of the U.S. Constitution.