On September 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the order and judgment of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in D.V.D. v. DHS, allowing third-country removals (TCRs) to continue (pending arguments scheduled for early December 2026). The AILA Asylum and Refugee Committee presents this late-breaking seminar focusing on the current state of TCRs. Our panel of experts will share valuable TCR resources and the latest updates on legal challenges to the policy. Finally, they will offer practical steps and arguments practitioners can use to challenge TCRs in individual cases.

Featured Topics

• Resources for attorneys to stay updated on U.S. TCR agreements and ongoing removal flights
• Advocating for clients at risk of TCR: actions and arguments
• Litigation updates: DVD v. DHS, U.T. v. Blanche and challenges to Asylum Cooperative Agreements

Faculty

Gregory Fay (DL), AILA Asylum and Refugee Committee Chair, Tempe, AZ

Gregory Fay is an associate with Green Evans Schroeder PLLC. He is the chair of the AILA Asylum & Refugee Committee and Vice Chair of the AILA Arizona Chapter. Mr. Fay received his bachelor's degree from Brown University (2007) and his JD from the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University (2019).

Yael Schacher, Director for the Americas and Europe, Refugees International, Washington, D.C.

Yael Schacher is the director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International (RI). Prior to joining RI, Yael researched the relationship between immigration and refugee policy for her forthcoming book on the history of asylum in the U.S. since the late nineteenth century. She taught at the University of Connecticut and lectured on immigration history and refugee policy at Harvard Law School, the University of Minnesota, Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt and numerous academic conferences and public forums. While teaching at UConn, Yael helped with asylum and humanitarian visa cases at the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants. While a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin just before starting at RI, Yael combined historical research on asylum and advocacy on behalf of asylum seekers (with the law school’s immigration clinic and with the organization Justice for Our Neighbors).

Melissa Crow, North Potomac, MD

Melissa Crow leads the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies' (CGRS) affirmative litigation, direct representation work, and appellate practice before federal courts and immigration agencies. Before joining CGRS, Melissa was a Senior Supervising Attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center's Immigrant Justice Project, Legal Director of the American Immigration Council, a senior advisor at DHS under the Obama administration, counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy during the 2007 U.S. Senate debates on immigration reform, a partner with Brown, Goldstein & Levy in Baltimore, MD, and a clinical law professor in the International Human Rights Law Clinic at Washington College of Law and the Safe Harbor Clinic at Brooklyn Law School.

Peter A. Habib, San Francisco, CA

Peter A. Habib is a staff attorney at CGRS. An Equal Justice Works alumnus, his fellowship focused on protections for individuals displaced in the context of climate change. He has advocated before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and he has worked with asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border as well as throughout Mexico and Panama. Peter is currently co-counsel in U.T. v. Blanche and Al Otro Lado, Haitian Bridge Alliance, et al. v. Trump.

Alma David, Of Counsel, Novo Legal Group, Kent, WA

Alma David is Of Counsel at Novo Legal Group where she leads the third-country deportation docket. She is passionate about advocating for noncitizens in immigration detention. She was previously an associate and partner with Rios & Cruz, P.S., a partner at Global Justice Law Group, and a partner with the Immigrant Advocacy and Litigation Center. She served as an EOIR-appointed representative for immigration detainees found mentally incompetent to represent themselves in removal proceedings at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. She served as the immigration appellate attorney for Prisoner Legal Services New York (PLS) with a focus on appeals for detained clients, and mentored and trained attorneys in PLS' immigration unit. Alma has extensive experience in a wide range of immigration law areas, including removal defense, asylum, U-visas, and appeals before the BIA, AAO, and the Ninth Circuit.

AILA Membership Benefit

AILA Membership Benefit – Access to Free Seminar Recordings
Enjoy access to free seminar recordings as an AILA Member. AILA encourages live attendance for those wishing to ask the speaker questions. Recordings will be available approximately two weeks after the live event date. AILA members can access these seminars, with no CLE credit, for free.