Jacqueline Brown

Jacqueline Marie Brown is an Associate Professor and Director of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic. Professor Brown began her career in immigration law in 2005 at the SF Immigration Court as an attorney advisor through the DOJ Honors Program. When working at her firm, she dedicated a significant part of her private practice to providing pro bono legal representation to children in removal proceedings. She has also worked with CLINIC’s National Pro Bono Project for Children and CLESPA and as Legal Director for the Sonoma County Secure Families Collaborative.

With Founding Director Bill Ong Hing, Professor Brown started the Immigration & Deportation Defense Clinic in 2015. Through the Clinic, staff attorneys and law students provide pro bono legal representation to immigrants in immigration court and on appeal in the 9th Circuit.  The clinic also assists children who are eligible for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) in state court all over California.  Professor Brown is an expert in asylum law, immigration detention and SIJS.  In addition to running the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic, she teaches U.S. Asylum Law, Crimn Immigration Law in Practice and Family Law.

• Immigration law
• Asylum law
• Family law
• Removal defense
• Immigration detention
• Children and immigration

• Refugee and asylum law
• The intersection of Christianity and immigration enforcement

• JD, University of San Francisco
• MA, San Francisco State University
• BS, Saint Lawrence University

• Producing Exiles Through Withholding of Removal Abuse, Third Country Removals, and Asylum Cooperative Agreements: The Theological and Legal Failure of U.S. Asylum Policy, Southwestern Law Review, Vol. 55, (2026).
• A New Opportunity to Reformulate the Definition of a Particular Social Group Post Chevron, 70 Intercultural Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 151 (2025).
• Fact-Finding Is an Immigration Lawyer's Job: The Importance of Working One-on-One with Clients in Asylum Cases, 59 USF L. Rev. 417 (2025).