Sarah J. Diaz

Sarah J. Diaz, J.D., LL.M, is the Director of the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, Co-Director of Loyola's Holistic Immigration Hub, and Associate Director of the Center for the Human Rights of Children at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Prof. Diaz teaches and practices in the areas of immigration, refugee law, and international human rights law. She has worked at the intersection of child migration and human rights for twenty years. Before joining Loyola, Prof. Diaz served as the National Case Director for the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, practiced immigration law at the National Immigrant Justice Center, and taught clinical programs at DePaul University College of Law. She is a graduate of DePaul Law School and Northwestern Law School's LL.M. Program in International Human Rights.

Throughout her career, Prof. Diaz has participated in several initiatives designed to create access to justice for migrants on a local, state, and international level including authoring the Illinois Voices Act, serving on the Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force, developing and co-leading a DACA legal services collaborative that directed policy feedback for the Obama Administration, and providing expert opinions to the UN Working Group on the Use of Private Security Companies in the context of migrant detention. Prof. Diaz was awarded the Kolvenbach Award for Engaged Teaching in 2023 for her commitment to transformative education at Loyola University. She has also won awards for her scholarship, including Northwestern’s Charles Haney Hide Award in Public International Law. Her most recent publication, a co-edited book entitled Kids in Cages: Surviving & Resisting Child Migrant Detention, was published by the Arizona University Press in Fall 2024.