Arifa Raza

Arifa Raza
Affiliate Faculty of Comparative Ethnic Studies
Affiliate Faculty of American Studies

Education

Ph.D., 2018, Ethnic Studies, University of California, Riverside
J.D., 2015, University of California, Los Angeles
M.S., 2010, Justice Studies, Arizona State University

Research

Arifa Raza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University. She received a M.S. in Justice Studies from Arizona State University in 2010, a J.D. from UCLA in 2015 where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Chicana/o Latina/o Law Review, and a Ph. D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Riverside in 2018.  Dr. Raza’s current research examines the criminalization and racialization of immigrants through immigration laws, focusing on humanitarian relief for victims of human trafficking and immigrant children. Her scholarship is grounded in her experience as a non-profit immigration attorney, where she practiced before the Los Angeles and El Paso immigration courts as well as the Board of Immigration Appeals. She is joining the department by way of Albuquerque, New Mexico where she supervised her organization’s detention and asylum programs.

Dr. Raza’s other research interests include comparative ethic and race studies, human rights, and prison studies. She has previously taught a law course on human trafficking while at UCLA law school, and was a teaching assistant for ethnic studies courses as a doctoral student. She recently wrote a book chapter on human trafficking which will be published in the edited volume Race and Racism in Anti-Trafficking currently in press with Routledge, and is working on developing her dissertation into a manuscript.

Research Interests

Immigration/crimmigration; comparative race/ethnic studies; human trafficking; human rights; prison studies