Bringing Immigration into Civil Procedure (and Civ Pro into Immigration)

Professor Sinnar

I am one of those lucky immprofs who also gets to teach Civil Procedure. Woot. Woot. (That’s an unironic woot for those unsure, a burst of genuine enthusiasm).

It’s the start of the semester and I’m teaching my students about how to initiate a federal law suit — with a complaint. And we’re reading the complaint biggies from SCOTUS including those two modern (at least post-my-law-school-graduation) pleading Goliaths: Twombly and Iqbal.

I’m scanning around the internet, looking for a photo of Iqbal when I stumble upon an article by Professor Shirin Sinnar (Stanford): The Lost Story of Iqbal, 105 Georgetown Law Journal 379 (2017).

Readers, let me tell you, this article is the bomb.

Sinnar uncovers the story of the man behind the lawsuit. A man summarily described by SCOTUS as “a citizen of Pakistan and a Muslim” who, following 9/11, “was arrested in the United States on criminal charges and detained by federal officials.”

Sinnar interviews Iqbal both in Pakistan and over Skype from the United States. She details his immigrant story, his detention story, and his post-deportation story. Each is utterly compelling.

For those immprofs who don’t teach Civ Pro… don’t tune this post out. Know that all of your students will have read Iqbal. So the case (and Sinnar’s details that aren’t apparent on the face of the case) can be a reference point when you’re discussing issues of detention (criminal and civil) as well as national security/terrorism.

If nothing else, the piece has that photo I was searching for.

-KitJ