Patricia Stottlemyer

As the litigation staff attorney at Human Rights First, Patricia Stottlemyer helps lead the organization's impact litigation aimed at protecting access to asylum in the United States. She is co-counsel on federal lawsuits challenging policies that harm asylum seekers, including Damus v. Nielsen, a class-action lawsuit challenging ICE's denial of parole to asylum seekers; O.A. v. Trump, which invalidated the Trump administration's asylum ban (its policy of barring from asylum individuals who enter the United States between ports of entry); and CAIR Coalition v. Trump, which struck down the third-country transit ban. In addition to helping to manage Human Rights First’s impact litigation docket, she has co-authored several amicus briefs, including an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court on behalf of retired generals and admirals of the U.S. armed forces, arguing that the “travel ban” is harmful to U.S. national security interests. 

Patricia joined Human Rights First as the Chubb Rule of Law and Human Rights Fellow. In this capacity, she worked with both the national security and refugee advocacy teams. She advocated before Congress and the executive branch for national security policies that uphold human rights, including policies related to Guantanamo detention and military commissions, the use of force, and civilian casualties.  

Patricia obtained her juris doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a Toll Public Interest Scholar and a senior editor on the Journal of Constitutional Law. While at Penn Law, she also obtained a graduate certificate in Middle East and Islamic Studies. She served as a student legal representative in the Transnational Legal Clinic, where she handled defensive asylum cases and petitions for victims of trafficking. Her writing has been published in numerous outlets, including Just Security and the University of Chicago Law Review Online. Prior to her legal career, Patricia worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Project on Middle East Democracy, and was a recipient of the State Department's Critical Language Scholarship for Modern Standard Arabic.