Elizabeth Jordan

Elizabeth Jordan is a visiting professor in the University of Denver Sturm College of Law’s Immigration Law & Policy Clinic. Her practice, teaching, and scholarship focus on advancing human rights in the United States legal system through trauma-informed, cross-cultural representation of her clients. Prof. Jordan has significant experience at the intersection of immigration law, disability law, and the criminal legal system, and has dedicated her career to working on the front lines of these issues including through zealous representation of death-sentenced prisoners, immigrant children, and immigrants with disabilities in  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. As the director of the ILPC, she supervises law students representing people in ICE custody and in removal proceedings in Aurora, Colorado.

Her prior work, at the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC) in Denver, included serving as co-lead counsel in Fraihat v. ICE, a systemwide class action lawsuit that led to the release of thousands of detained immigrants with elevated risk factors for COVID-19 during the pandemic.

Before joining CREEC, Prof. Jordan was a staff attorney at The Door’s Legal Services Center in New York City and a Fellow with the Capital Appeals Project in Louisiana. Prior to law school, she spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Spain studying human rights issues. Prof. Jordan received her Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and graduated summa cum laude from New York University’s School of Law.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) recognized Prof. Jordan with the 2021 Arthur C. Helton Human Rights Award for outstanding service in advancing the cause of human rights.

Her scholarship has been published in the Harvard Law and Policy Review and she regularly provides public comment on immigration issues and has been featured on National Public Radio, in the Los Angeles Times, and in numerous Colorado-based media outlets.

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JD'13, magna cum laude, New York University School of Law
BA'06, cum laude, with distinction in Political Science and Latin American Studies, Yale University