BLF Year Long Grant 2026-27

Harvard Law School

Council on American Islamic Relations, Los Angeles

Ibrahim was born and raised in Southern California and after graduating law school
returned to his home communities in Orange County as an immigration lawyer. His
fellowship is hosted at the Council on American Islamic Relations, Los Angeles (“CAIR-
LA”), where he will use federal litigation to represent and support low-income
immigrants who are victims of unconstitutional immigration detention and other forms of
unlawful executive overreach.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) has a history of detaining Muslim
and justice-involved individuals without regard to age, disability, family ties, or prior
grants of release. In recent years, traditional avenues for release through the
immigration courts, like bond hearings, have largely collapsed due to sweeping
executive actions. ICE has also increased its arrest of immigrants without providing
constitutionally required due process. Vulnerable immigrants, thus, remain in unlawful
detention with no meaningful administrative relief, leaving federal district courts as the
only remaining and viable forum for due process. While federal litigation can be highly
effective, federal courts remain unfamiliar terrain for many non-profit immigration
lawyers. Orange County and the greater Southern California region are no exceptions to
these trends.

Building on Ibrahim’s existing work at CAIR-LA, this yearlong fellowship will be
the first of its kind in Orange County to integrate habeas corpus petitions within a
coordinated regional strategy to train providers, align efforts, and scale this critical form
of relief. Through community collaboration, mentorship, and litigation, the project will
actualize a regional framework that wields the judiciary as a check on executive
overreach in immigration detention. The overall goal is to sustainably grow the
availability of free habeas representation for low-income immigrants in the region and
the overall capacity of Southern California based non-profits to engage in federal
litigation.

Ibrahim Bharmal is a Pakistani Muslim-American from Orange County, California,
a place he loves and calls home. He is a graduate from Harvard Law School and
Harvard Kennedy School (25’ JD/MPP). During law school he was a student attorney
with Harvard Defenders, an advanced clinical student with the Crimmigration Clinic, and
an editor with the Harvard Law Review. Please reach out to Ibrahim if you would like
recommendations for the best immigrant-owned cafes in Orange County.