Michael Kagan

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Director, UNLV Immigration Clinic

Professor of Law

Expertise: Immigration Law, International Human Rights Law, Administrative Law

Biography

Michael Kagan, director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic, teaches administrative law, professional responsibility, international human rights and immigration law. In both his research and his clinical teaching, Kagan focuses on the tension between immigration law and civil rights.

Kagan has been published by numerous top law reviews and journals and wrote several of the most widely cited articles in the fields of international refugee and asylum law, which have been relied on by courts in multiple countries. Kagan’s research on credibility assessment in asylum cases “guided most subsequent research and analysis on the topic,” according to a 2012 commentary. He is frequently interviewed on immigration issues by local, national and global news media, and is a frequent Op-Ed writer, with his work appearing in The Washington Post, Salon.com, The Daily Beast, World Politics Review, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Before coming to UNLV's Boyd School of Law, Kagan spent 10 years building legal aid programs for refugees throughout the Middle East and Asia, and lived in London, Cairo, Beirut and Jerusalem. He held teaching positions at Tel Aviv University and the American University in Cairo. His role in expanding refugee legal aid in the global south was profiled in Zachary Kaufman’s Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012).

Education

J.D., University of Michigan Law School
B.A., Northwestern University

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Michael Kagan In The News

Former Pres. Donald Trump, who has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, an authoritarian blueprint for the next conservative U.S. presidency, would be hard pressed to find any daylight between his immigration policy and that advocated by Project 2025. The cornerstone of both policies is the militaristic removal of unauthorized immigrants, a move that would be disastrous for Nevada families and its economy.

We start with highlights from a Brookings Mountain West panel discussion on U.S. and Mexico, held at UNLV and hosted by Amber Renee Dixon. Experts share insights on the relationship between the two countries, and how the election will impact it. Then, former NFL cornerback and 8 News Now Analyst Mark McMillian shares his insights on this year’s Raiders team as the football season gets underway.

Newsweek

U.S. immigration authorities promised this week that a migrant accused of raping an underage girl at a shelter in Massachusetts would have his day in court, despite officers arresting him before he could get there.

Daily Hampshire Gazette

When President Biden announced that he was going to deport asylum-seekers without respecting their legal right to due process because the border is too congested, many liberals and moderates cheered. They viewed this draconian measure as Biden finally reassuring the voters that he is, in fact, not “soft” on the immigrant “invasion.” And they were convinced by the president’s argument that he had no choice but to “close down” the border.