Bio
Michael Tan is a Deputy Director for the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project (IRP). His practice includes litigation and advocacy relating to immigration detention, immigrants' access to education, and the rights of undocumented young people. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the Yale Law School and also holds a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from New York University. After law school, Michael clerked for the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked at IRP as Skadden Fellow and a Liman Public Interest Fellow. In 2014, he was awarded a California Lawyer of the Year Award in Immigration Law for his work on Rodriguez v. Robbins, a class action lawsuit challenging the prolonged detention of immigrants without bond hearings. Michael was awarded a Best Lawyers Under 40 Award by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association in 2016, and was also named a Best LGBT Lawyer Under the Age of 40 by the National LGBT Bar Association in 2017.
Featured work
![Jessica Colotl with her cousins](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web17-colotlcousins-1160x768-400x266.jpg)
Sep 28, 2017
One of the First Undocumented Young People to Stand Up and Tell Her Story Needs Our Help
![Prison Cell](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web17-prisoncellgreen-1160x768-400x266.jpg)
Sep 26, 2017
The Government Wants ICE to Have the Power to Lock Up Immigrants for Years Without a Hearing. We’re Taking the Fight to the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
![DACA State Map](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web17-blog-dacastate-1160x768-v01-400x266.jpg)
Aug 7, 2017
Are States Coordinating With the Trump Administration to Take Down DACA? We Aim to Find Out.
![Jessica and Friends](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web17-jessicaaoa-1160x768-400x266.jpg)
Jun 9, 2017
Jessica Colotl’s Story Reveals President Trump’s Broken Promise to Protect Dreamers From Deportation
![Joseph with his Son](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web16-joseph-w-son-in-uniform-1160x768-2-400x266.jpg)
Nov 28, 2016
In America, No One — Including Immigrants — Should Be Locked Up Without Due Process of Law
![Cesar Matias](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web16-blog-cesar-matias-1160x768_0-400x266.jpg)
Nov 16, 2016
Victory: Federal Court Holds That the Government Can’t Lock Up Immigrants for Being Poor
![Handcuffed hands through prison bars](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web16-blog-jail-hands-1160x768-2-400x266.jpg)
Apr 6, 2016
Immigrants Shouldn’t Be Locked Up for Being Poor
![Prison Cells](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web15-blog-jus-mass-incarceration-1160x768-400x266.jpg)
Nov 5, 2015
Judges Say No to Obama’s Lock-’Em-Up-With-No-Questions-Asked Immigration Detention Policy