LOS ANGELES, CA The Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law today announced that Dr. Moritz Baumgärtel has joined the Center as its first Visiting Scholar. Dr. Baumgärtel is a Fulbright-Schuman Visiting Scholar, and an Assistant Professor of Law at University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands, where he teaches public international law and human rights law. His research primarily focuses on the human rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants.

Baumgärtel is the author of Demanding Rights: Europe's Supranational Courts and the Dilemma of Migrant Vulnerability (2019) and editor of Theorizing Local Migration Law and Governance (with Sara Miellet, forthcoming), both published by Cambridge University Press. He is also the senior researcher of the Dutch Research Council’s Cities of Refuge project based at Utrecht University. There, he focuses on the international legal obligations and policy initiatives of cities and local governments with regards to migration.

“I am delighted and honored to be the first visiting scholar at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy,” said Baumgärtel about his appointment. “During my time here, I will study legal trends and mobilizations surrounding sanctuary policies. My plan is to compare those to similar dynamics that we have recently observed in many European countries. I really cannot imagine a better place than UCLA, and in particular, CILP, to take on such a complex and fascinating topic. I greatly look forward to the exchanges with the outstanding academics and practitioners at the Center – and hope that I will bring some new perspectives to the table.”

“We are especially excited to welcome Professor Baumgärtel to the Center for Immigration Law and Policy and to the UCLA School of Law,” said CILP Faculty Co-Director Hiroshi Motomura. “Moritz is a leading European thinker on the authority of local governments in shaping immigration law and immigrants’ rights, and on the role of human rights in shaping that authority. We very much look forward to an ongoing dialogue on these and related topics in the coming months.”

Founded in 2020, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law expands the law school's role as a national leader in immigration law and policy, generating innovative ideas at the intersection of immigration scholarship and practice and serving as a hub for transforming those ideas into meaningful changes in immigration policy. 

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