Sabrina Balgamwalla

• Biography

  Sabrina Balgamwalla is an assistant professor of law and the director of the Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic. Balgamwalla joined Wayne Law's faculty in 2017, following three years at the University of North Dakota School of Law directing the Immigrant Rights section of the Law Clinic. She was previously a teaching fellow at the University of Baltimore School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic and, prior to entering academia, worked as a nonprofit immigration and domestic violence attorney in Washington, DC.

  Balgamwalla regularly serves as a resource to community partner organizations, and has held positions on a nonprofit board, with a state advisory committee, on a committee of the AALS Clinical Section, and in the D.C. chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Her international experience includes travel to Mindanao as a clinical legal education expert with the International Senior Lawyers Project and the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines, as well as a Fulbright grant to Jordan. Her scholarly research examines intersections of gender, race, and citizenship in immigration policy and enforcement.

• Degrees and Certifications

  B.A., Bryn Mawr College
  J.D., American University Washington College of Law

• Selected publications

  Trafficking Rescue Initiatives as State Violence, 122 Penn. St. L. Rev. 171 (2017)
  
  Trafficking in Narratives: Conceptualizing and Recasting Victims, Offenders, and Rescuers in the War on Human Trafficking, 94 Denver U. L.R. 1 (2016)
  
  Jobs Looking for People, People Looking for Their Rights: Protecting Immigrant Workers in North Dakota, 91 N.D. L. Rev. 483 (2015)

  Bride and Prejudice: How U.S. Immigration Law Discriminates Against Spousal Visa Holders, 29 Berkeley J. of Gender L. & Just. 25 (2014), reprinted in Women and the Law (Thomson Reuters 2014)

• Social Science Research Network
  View SSRN Profile
• Accomplishments
  • Sabrina Balgamwalla Sabrina Balgamwalla has been named Edward J. Littlejohn Research Scholar (2024). 
  • Sabrina Balgamwalla has been appointed as a member of the State Bar of Michigan Access to Justice Policy Committee. Committee work helps the State Bar meet its responsibilities to promote the professionalism of lawyers; advocate for an open, fair, and accessible justice system; and provide services to members that enable them to best serve their clients.
  • Sabrina Balgamwalla co-lead a breakout session with Rachel Settlage about “Teaching During Divisive Times” at the Immigration Law Scholars and Teachers Workshop 2018 at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
• Recent courses taught

  Winter Term 2025 (future)

  • LEX8604 - Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic

  Winter Term 2024

  • LEX8604 - Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic

  Fall Term 2023

  • LEX8604 - Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic

  Winter Term 2023

  • LEX8604 - Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic

  Fall Term 2022

  • LEX8604 - Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic

  Winter Term 2022

  • LEX8604 - Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic

Recent university news spotlights

• 6 independent metro Detroit bookstores to visit this holiday season: Professor Sabrina Balgamwalla, a member owner of Book Suey, is featured
• Trump deportations in Michigan: How lawyers, advocates say immigrants should prepare
• Breaking down immigration law
• Warriors in the Community, Episode 2: The Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic