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
Sep 14, 2012
Immigration Detainees Have the Right to Due Process, Too
Sep 1, 2011
No Bond, No Bars
Jun 16, 2011
Deportation to Haiti Is Still a Death Sentence
May 24, 2011
New Bill Proposes to Lock Up Immigrants Forever
May 11, 2011
School Is For Everyone
Mar 9, 2011
No Bond, No Bars: Federal Court Rejects the Prolonged Detention of Immigrants Without a Hearing
Nov 17, 2010
Preserving a Lifeline to College and Daring to DREAM
Aug 20, 2009
Class Action Challenging Prolonged Immigration Detention Goes Forward