Sarah J. Diaz
Director of the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic; Co-Director of Loyola's Holistic Immigration Hub; Associate Director of the Center for the Human Rights of Children
Sarah J. Diaz. J.D., LL.M is the Director of the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, Co-Director of Loyola's Holistic Immigration Hub, and Associate Director of the Center for the Human Rights of Children at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Prof. Diaz teaches and practices in the areas of immigration, refugee law, and international human rights law. She has worked at the intersection of child migration and human rights for twenty years. Before joining Loyola, Prof.Diaz served as the National Case Director for the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, practiced immigration law at the National Immigrant Justice Center, and taught clinical programs at DePaul University College of Law. She is a graduate of DePaul Law School and Northwestern Law School's LL.M. Program in International Human Rights.
Throughout her career, Prof. Diaz has participated in several initiatives designed to create access to justice for migrants on a local, state, and international level including authoring the Illinois Voices Act, serving on the Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force, developing and co-leading a DACA legal services collaborative that directed policy feedback for the Obama Administration, and providing expert opinions to the UN Working Group on the Use of Private Security Companies in the context of migrant detention. Prof.Diaz was awarded the Kolvenbach Award for Engaged Teaching in 2023 for her commitment to transformative education at Loyola University. She has also won awards for her scholarship, including Northwestern’s Charles Haney Hide Award in Public International Law. Her most recent publication, a co-edited book entitled Kids in Cages: Surviving & Resisting Child Migrant Detention, was published by the Arizona University Press in Fall 2024.
Education
BS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
JD, DePaul University College of Law
LLM, Northwestern University School of Law
Courses Taught
Immigration Detention Project
Immigration Practicum
Immigration Law
International Human Rights
Publications/Research Listings
Books and book chapters
The Incongruity of Child Rights and the International Protection of Migrant Children, in A Research Agenda for Children's Rights Law, (forthcoming, Elgar Publishing, Fall 2025).
Kids in Cages: Surviving and Resisting Child Migrant Detention, Lina Caswell, Sarah J. Diaz, J.D., LL.M., & Emily Navarro, PhD., Co-editor, (Arizona Press, Fall 2024).
Toward a Decarceral Future: Reflections on the Practicability of Abolishing Migrant Child Detention, in Kids in Cages: Surviving and Resisting Child Migrant Detention, (Arizona Press, Fall 2024).
“Not ‘Our’ Children”: The Othering of Migrant Children and the Concomitant Use of State-Sanctioned Violence through Immigration Law and Policy, in Kids in Cages: Surviving and Resisting Child Migrant Detention, (Arizona Press, Fall 2024) (with Lisa Jacobs and Katherine Walts).
Hague Abduction Considerations for the Hague Adoption Lawyer, in The International Adoption Sourcebook, (AILA 2 Ed. 2021)
Interdisciplinary research and publications
Kids in Care: Unaccompanied Children in Federal Government Custody (muti-year, interdisciplinary national research study on the conditions of detention for migrant children) (August 2024).
No Right to Life: Lives Lost and the Legalized Violence that Shaped a Humanitarian Crisis in the Arizona Borderlands, CLALS Working Paper Series, No. 44 (Nov. 2023) (with Madeline Brashear, 3L).
Denouncing medical practices that imperil unaccompanied youth. Harvard Public Health Review. 2023; 74. (with Dr. Lauren Heidbrink, PhD). (Top 10 Download List on SSRN for “Medical Ethics” Sept. 2024).
Atrocity Crimes Against Migrant Children and Families in the United States: An Accountability Framework for Family Separation, Center for Mexico and Central America, Expert Series, No. 5, Columbia University (December 2022).
The Role of Public Health in the Rule of Law: The Cautionary Tale of Title 42 Expulsions. Harvard Public Health Review. 2021; 30. (2021) (with Loyola law student, Malachy Schrobilgen).
Legal publications
No Second Chance: the Adultification of Migrant Children in Immigration Law Adjudications, (with Jessica Heldman, JD, Lisa Jacobs, JD, and Sierra Garcia, 3L) (forthcoming, Fall 2025).
Action Brief for Immigration Judges—Indigenous Child Migration: Research, Law, and Policy for Consideration in Immigration Proceedings (editor) (Sept. 2024) (authored by Lauren Heidbrink, PhD and Michele Statz, PhD).
Action Brief for Immigration Judges—Adjudicating Discretion in Youth Cases: Research, Law, and Policy for Consideration in Immigration Proceedings. (Feb 2024) (with Carolyn Frazier and Lisa Jacobs)
Denormalizing Harm to Migrant Children in the U.S. Immigration System: A Comparative Perspective, 43 CHILD. LEGAL RTS. J. 1 (2023) (with Loyola Law Student, Oneida Molina Vargas).
Action Brief for Immigration Judges—Child Trauma: Research, Law, and Policy for Consideration in Immigration Proceedings. (Sept. 2023) (with Carolyn Frazier).
Action Brief for Immigration Judges—Adolescent Brain Development: Research, Law, and Policy for Consideration in Immigration Proceedings. (June 2023) (with Jaju Wu and Loyola Law Student Peggy Frazier)
Considerations for Tender-Aged Children in Immigration Court Proceedings, ABA Children’s Immigration Law Academy, (2023) (with Jajah Wu, JD, Loyola Law Student Oneida Vargas, and Loyola PhD student Sarah Jolie).
The Inappropriate Use of Juvenile Records in Immigration Discretion, Center for the Human Rights of Children and Civitas ChildLaw Center, published online (July 2022) (with Lisa Jacobs).
Hague Abduction Law for the Contemporary Immigrant Parent and Child, 2 AILA L.J. 107 (2020).
COVID-19’s Nefarious Toll on Migrant Children: Executive Overreach and a Framework to Prevent Abuse, online symposium Children's Rights in the Time of COVID-19, Center for the Human Rights of Children, Loyola University School of Law, November 17, 2020 (with Malachy Schrobilgen, 2L).
An Elusive Mandate: Enforcing the Prohibition on the Use of Child Soldiers, 39 CHILD. LEGAL RTS. J. 263 (2019).
Failing the Refugee Child: Gaps in the Refugee Convention Relating to Children, 20 GEO. J. GENDER & L. 605 (2019).
Parent-Child Border Separations Violate International Law: Why it matters and what can be done to protect children and families, GEO. HUM. RTS. INST., Perspectives in Human Rights No. 6 (Aug. 2018).
Illinois VOICES Act, S.B. 34, 100th Gen. Assem. (2017). (Author of the U-visa certification provisions.)
Re-Interpreting Postville: A Legal Perspective, 2 DEPAUL J. SOC. JUST. 31 (2008) (with S. Albiol and L.Chan).