David Wolfe Leopold, J.D. – Past President, American Immigration Lawyers Association

Dear Colleagues:

Stopping and punishing illegal immigration was the defining issue of Donald Trump’s campaign for President. He called immigrants criminals and rapists, said he would ban Muslims from entering the country, called for a “wall” between the U.S. and Mexico, and convinced Republican voters that he meant business in a way his nomination rivals did not. His party’s platform adapted his positions, including to undo “unlawful amnesties” such as President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

He began implementing his approach with his January 25 executive order to punish “sanctuary cities,” and his January 27 order, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.” Now students from Muslim (and other) countries worry whether they will be safe in the U.S. And over 700,000 immigrants who applied for DACA must fear that doing so made them targets for immediate deportation.

David Leopold, one of the nation’s leading authorities on immigration law, will discuss news to date, legal responses, and the possible human consequences.

All best regards,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies 

About Our Guests

David Leopold is the founder and principal of David Wolfe Leopold & Associates Co., LPA. His diverse immigration, visa and citizenship practice focuses on complex removal cases, including trials, appeals, and federal court litigation; employment-based immigration for international medical graduates, researchers, scientists, high-tech workers, engineers and other skilled professionals; representation of foreign nationals at U.S. consulates abroad, including E-1 and E-2 treaty trader/investor visa applications and waivers of inadmissibility; family-based immigration, including foreign spouses, fiancées, and family unity waivers; asylum; naturalization and citizenship; and I-9 compliance audits/employer sanctions defense.

Mr. Leopold is the past president and past general counsel of the Washington, D.C.-based American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), the premier bar association of immigration lawyers and professors in the U.S. He has served as AILA’s liaison to the Department of Homeland Security’s key enforcement bureaus and co-founded the American Immigration Council’s Litigation Institute, a hands-on continuing legal education program focused on federal immigration litigation.

A nationally recognized immigration reform advocate, blogger, and public speaker, Mr. Leopold has testified as an immigration law expert before the U.S Congress. His opinions and analysis on cutting edge immigration issues frequently appear in major media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, Al Jazeera America and CCTV.

Mr. Leopold lectures on immigration law and policy throughout the U.S. He served as a Senior Editor of AILA’s Immigration & Nationality Handbook and as a contributing author to AILA’s Visa Processing Guide. For nearly 20 years Mr. Leopold served as an adjunct professor of law at the Case Western Reserve and Cleveland-Marshall Schools of Law where he taught survey and advance courses on immigration, visa, and asylum law.

He received his Juris Doctorate from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1985 and took a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Michigan in 1980, where he studied economics.

Where We Meet

The Friday Public Affairs Lunch convenes each Friday when classes are in session, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Our programs are open to all and no registration is required. We usually meet in the Dampeer Room of Kelvin Smith Library. The Dampeer Room is on the second floor of the library. If you get off the elevators, turn right, pass the first bank of tables, and turn right again. Occasionally we need to use a different room; that will always be announced in the weekly e-mails.

Parking Possibilities

The most convenient parking is the lot underneath Severance Hall. We regret that it is not free. From that lot there is an elevator up to street level (labeled as for the Thwing Center); it is less than 50 yards from that exit to the library entrance. You can get from the Severance garage to the library without going outside. Near the entry gates – just to the right if you were driving out – there is a door into a corridor. Walk down the corridor and there will be another door. Beyond that door you’ll find the entrance to an elevator which goes up to an entrance right inside the doors to Kelvin Smith Library.

Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

February 17: The New Health Education Campus and the Future of Health Care. With James Young M.D., Executive Dean, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University.

February 24: Challenges Facing the U.S. Intelligence Community. With Vincent E. McHale, Ph.D., Marcus A. Hanna Emeritus Professor of Political Science.

March 3: Staffing and Organizing the Trump Presidency. With David B. Cohen, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, University of Akron.

March 10: Nuclear Weapons. With William J. Fickinger, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Physics.

March 17: No program, Spring Break.

March 24: Energy Storage: A Key to Sustainability. With Daniel A. Scherson, Ph.D., Frank Hovorka Professor of Chemistry and Director, Ernest B. Yeager Center for Electrochemical Sciences.

March 31: Merkel’s Challenge: Managing Trump, Putin, and a Million Syrians. With Mark K. Cassell, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Kent State University.

April 7: Program to be Determined

April 14: Brazil’s Political Crises. With Juscelino F. Colares, Ph.D., Schott-Van den Eyden Professor of Business Law and Associate Director, Frederick K. Cox International Law Center.

April 21: Program to be Determined

April 28: Putin’s Russia. With Kelly M. McMann, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science and Director, International Studies Program.