Raha Jorjani

Bernstein Parker Activist Writer Fellow 2022, Leading Edge Fellow

Alum 2022 | Alum 2024 | Fellow 2022 | Fellow 2024

Raha Jorjani is a managing immigration defense attorney with the Office of the Alameda County Public Defender in Oakland and directs California’s first public defender deportation defense unit. Recognizing the need for representation for indigent individuals impacted by both the criminal legal system and the immigration system, Raha founded and implemented California’s first public defender deportation defense model, which has been replicated locally and nationally.

From 2007 until 2014, she served as a clinical professor at the UC Davis Law School. In 2015, she taught the first “Crimmigration” course offered at UC Berkeley Law School.

Since 2005, Raha has provided pro bono representation and legal assistance to hundreds of immigrants, most of them detained, before the Immigration Court, BIA, U.S. District Court, U.S. Court of Appeals, and California state courts.

Raha regularly conducts trainings for attorneys and state court judges on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions. In 2016, she was selected as one of eight fellows for the Rosenberg Foundation’s Inaugural Leading Edge Fellowship and in 2017, she received the Community Service Award from the Iranian American Bar Association’s Northern California Chapter. In 2018, her contributions to immigrant justice were recognized by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

In 2022, she was selected for a Mesa Refuge Writing Residency. She is currently working on a memoir and exposé of the Immigration Detention and Deportation system.

Photo: Jean Melesaine