Huyen Pham
Professor of Law
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Courses: Immigration Law, Criminal Law, and Refugee & Asylum Law Seminar

Professor Huyen Pham joined the faculty at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in 2006. She previously was an associate professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law. Before teaching, Professor Pham practiced law in both the private and public sectors. At the Boston firm of Hill & Barlow, she worked primarily in the litigation department, helping to represent clients as diverse as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Anderson Consulting (now Accenture), and the American Civil Liberties Union. In her work as an assistant attorney general in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, she was co-counsel to the Missouri Ethics Commission, representing the Commission in federal, state and administrative proceedings. Professor Pham also clerked for the Hon. George A. O’Toole, U.S. District Court in Boston. 

Professor Pham’s scholarship focuses on immigration law and its intersections with criminal law. In the immigration policy debate, the question of who enforces our immigration laws can be as significant as what those policies are, and Professor Pham’s most recent projects have explored the implications of changing enforcement roles for the federal government, local governments, and private parties. 

Professor Pham has a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she graduated cum laude and served on the Executive Board of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. She earned her A.B. in social studies magna cum laude from Harvard College. After graduation from college, Professor Pham received an Echoing Green Public Service Fellowship to start a school in the Vietnamese refugee camp in Palawan, Philippines. 

Selected Publications

“The Private Enforcement of Immigration Laws,” Georgetown Law Journal (forthcoming 2008).

“The Constitutional Right Not to Cooperate? Local Sovereignty and the Federal Immigration Power,” 74 University of Cincinnati Law Review 1373 (2006).

“The Inherent Flaws in the Inherent Authority Position: Why Inviting Local Enforcement of Immigration Laws Violates the Constitution,” 31 Florida State University Law Review 965 (2004).

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