Molly Linhorst

A Syracuse native, Molly graduated from Harvard Law School in 2019 and will join ACLU-NJ as a 2019-2020 Justice Catalyst Fellow to challenge egregious immigration detention conditions at county-run facilities and the financial interests that perpetuate them.

Molly’s interest in immigration issues arose from her study of international relations and her work with refugees in her hometown, a resettlement community. At Harvard, Molly developed a particular interest in immigration detention through the Removal Defense Project — a student-run practice organization through which law students represent detained immigrants in their bond hearings. Through this program, she witnessed first-hand the punitive and inhumane detention system and how it prevented her clients from receiving the legal assistance they deserved. As a student of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic as well as the Harvard Crimmigration Clinic, she studied the increasingly criminalized federal immigration system. She spent two summers engaged in immigration law, first providing direct services at African Services Committee in New York City, and then as an intern for the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project in San Francisco. An interest in employing tort law to challenge institutional injustice led her to imagine how financial damages and tort actions may be used to discourage counties from detaining immigrants or to, at a minimum, ensure proper detention conditions.Molly is thrilled to embark on her career as a Justice Catalyst Fellow. She looks forward to collaborating with community organizers to address immigration detention in New Jersey and serving as an ally to the state’s immigrant community. Molly speaks Mandarin Chinese.

Fellowship type: Justice Catalyst

Organization: ACLU of New Jersey

Project name: Addressing Egregious Conditions in County-Run Immigration Detention