Immigration law scholar Wadhia to deliver E.N. Thompson lecture

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, a Penn State law professor and immigration law scholar, will present “Facing Immigrant Exclusion: Then and Now” at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.

The free public event is part of the 2021-22 E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. To order tickets, click here, call 402-472-4747 or visit the Lied Center box office, 301 N. 12th St. The forum is general admission, with seating on a first-come, first-served basis.

Wadhia will discuss immigration reform — specifically the call to adopt a legal and policy framework that considers the factors driving disparate immigration enforcement. The event is in partnership with the University of Nebraska College of Law.

Wadhia is an expert on immigration law whose research focuses on the role of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law and the intersections of race, national security and immigration. She is the founding director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Penn State Law and the author of two books, “Beyond Deportation: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases” and “Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump.” She is also co-author of “Immigration and Nationality Law: Problems and Strategies” and editor-in-chief of the AILA Law Journal. Wadia has been featured in national and international media outlets, published in numerous law journals and had her work cited by federal judges. Before joining Penn State, she was deputy director for legal affairs at the National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C. She has also been an associate with Maggio Kattar, P.C., in Washington, D.C.

This year’s E.N. Thompson series, “Moments of Reckoning: Global Calls for Racial Equity and Action,” features five explorations into historical and contemporary cases of discrimination. The series kicked off Sept. 1 with a panel discussion featuring Husker faculty. It continues with a lecture by Anna Deavere Smith, a world-renowned playwright, actress, author, journalist and educator, at 4 p.m. Feb. 9 at the Lied Center; a panel discussion featuring Lincoln-area youth at 7 p.m. March 22 at The Bay, 2005 Y St.; and a talk by Walter Echo-Hawk, a Native American rights attorney, tribal judge and law professor, at 7 p.m. April 6 at the Lied Center.

All events are free and open to the public. The university will follow the latest public health guidance from the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department. For more information, click here. Event summaries and full biographical information on each speaker is available here.

Events are streamed on the E.N. Thompson Forum website and available on NET, LNKTV City and LNKTV Education. Events are also accessible on campus channel 4 and KRNU radio 90.3 FM. All talks are interpreted or will have closed captioning for people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

The E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues is a cooperative project of the Cooper Foundation, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lied Center and University Honors Program. The series was established in 1988 with the purpose of bringing a diversity of viewpoints on international and public policy issues to the university and people of Nebraska to promote understanding and encourage discussion.