Dr. Lucas Guttentag

Biography

Lucas Guttentag is a Martin R. Flug Lecturer at Yale Law School and a Senior Research Scholar in Law, with a distinguished career spanning litigation, advocacy, academia, and government service. He founded the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and led it for 25 years, establishing it as the country’s premier immigrant justice litigation organization, where he successfully argued major cases before the United States Supreme Court and in trial and appellate courts nationwide. Guttentag has held senior policy roles in the Biden administration at the Department of Justice and in the Obama administration at the Department of Homeland Security. A recognized expert on immigration issues, he has testified before Congress and been widely cited in national media. In 2017, he established the Immigration Policy Tracking Project, a dynamic website that profiles Trump administration immigration policies. He has received numerous accolades for his work, including being named the inaugural Human Rights Hero by the ABA Human Rights Journal and recognized as Litigator of the Year by the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Guttentag earned his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, and has served as a law clerk for a federal judge in Texas.

Research Interests

Courses