Charles “Shane” Ellison joined the Duke Law faculty in 2020 in the Immigrant Rights Clinic. He formerly directed Creighton Law School’s Immigrant and Refugee Clinic through a collaborative partnership with the Immigrant Legal Center (ILC), where he served as legal director and lead attorney for more than nine years. During his tenure at ILC, he helped it grow from a four-employee organization to one of the largest nonprofit immigration law firms in the Midwest.
Ellison’s advocacy work contributed to the passage of three significant legislative initiatives that advanced immigrants’ rights in Nebraska: LB 623, which ensures that eligible youth within the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program can obtain a driver’s license; LB 947, which opens access to professional and commercial licenses to employment-authorized immigrants; and LB 670, which protects the ability of abused, abandoned, and neglected immigrant children to secure the necessary state court order to seek Special Immigrant Juvenile status. Additionally, he managed the impact litigation efforts of National Justice For Our Neighbors, litigating complex immigration cases and representing immigrant rights organizations through amicus briefs before the Executive Office for Immigration Review and the Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals.
Ellison currently sits on the National Amicus Committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), and he chairs the Asylum Litigation Working Group. He is frequently invited to speak at national immigration law conferences. His published scholarship has appeared in the Michigan Law Review Online, Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Creighton Law Review, and several practitioner-focused journals. He obtained his BA, magna cum laude, in philosophy from Trinity College in Deerfield, Ill., and his JD, cum laude, from Hofstra Law School.
