About

Raquel E. Aldana is the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law, where she joined in 2017 as the inaugural Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Diversity with a law faculty appointment and returned to full-time law teaching in 2020. She is a graduate of Arizona State University, earning bachelor's degrees in English and Spanish, and Harvard Law School. Prior to UC Davis, Aldana was a professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and served as a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala from 2006 to 2007. Her research has focused on transitional justice, criminal justice reforms, sustainable development in Latin America, and immigrant rights, leading multiple projects and programs in these areas. She has authored or edited five books and published over thirty law review articles or book chapters on topics including immigration, transitional justice, and criminal justice. Aldana teaches courses such as criminal procedure, asylum and refugee law, immigration law and policy, and comparative forced displacement, among others. She serves as Co-Director of the Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies, which fosters scholarship examining law through the lens of race, ethnicity, indigeneity, citizenship, and class. Aldana has received numerous awards, including the American Bar Association Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, the UC Davis Chancellor’s Achievement Award for Diversity and Community, and the UC Davis Office of Research and Policy for Equity Ubuntu Award for Inspiring Social Change. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Additionally, she has served on various task forces and councils aimed at promoting diversity and institutional development, including helping UC Davis become a Hispanic Serving Institution.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Social Science
• Social psychology
• Psychology
• Public relations
• History
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Florida plan to deputize National Guard officers as immigration judges at Alligator Alcatraz would likely violate constitutional rights

  2025-07-18

  preprint1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Adjudicating Credibility: Documenting the Role of Mental Health Immigration Forensic Assessments

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Adjudicating Credibility: Documenting the Role of Mental Health Immigration Forensic Assessments

  American Journal of Law & Medicine · 2025-07-01

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Mental health or psychological forensic assessments are a growing practice in immigration adjudication, but the practice is not well understood. Several studies have measured the impact of medical or mental health forensic reports in immigration adjudication; yet none have documented when mental health forensic reports are sought or how they are conducted in practice. This article undertakes an interdisciplinary empirical documentation of the practice of forensic mental health assessments in immigration adjudication. A core focus of our survey was documenting the role of mental health forensic immigration assessments in substantiating migrants' trauma and bolstering credibility. Our preliminary findings identify ways to improve the practice of mental health assessments within the immigration context toward practices that are more consistent with the science of trauma and memory.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Migrant deaths in Mexico put spotlight on US policy that shifted immigration enforcement south

  2023-04-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Lessons from Colombia’s response to Venezuelan forced displacement

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Trauma as Inclusion

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  PublisherDOI

• From Affirmative Action to Inclusion

  Springer eBooks · 2021 · 3 citations

  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Public relations

  Abstract Achieving a diverse and inclusive community requires establishing a culture of genuine equality for all members. Our purpose in writing this book is to share our collective knowledge about how to challenge the forces that enable and sustain discrimination in the workplace as informed by our experience developing and implementing the UC Davis ADVANCE program. The program’s goal is to create an inclusive academic community that reflects and serves the diverse population of California. In this introductory chapter, we emphasize the need to move from affirmative action programs, which have played an important role in fostering diversity, to a focus on institutional transformation, which requires not only changes in policy but also shifts in academic culture. Much of what we cover in this book is broadly applicable beyond academia and will interest those wanting to understand and address challenges to diversity, equity, and inclusion in their own organizations. Since workplaces differ in their goals, priorities, and culture, the book is not a “how to” manual but rather a collective effort to share with readers the approaches we took, the information we gathered, what we observed and experienced, and the lessons we learned along the way.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Border Solutions from the Inside

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• A Long-Term Vision on Faculty Diversity at UC Davis

  2021-11-18

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The sustainability of ADVANCE, beyond its early successes at UC Davis, largely depends on whether it can propel the types of transformational changes needed to fulfill ADVANCE’s own aspirations. One of these aspirations is to change the face of STEM at UC Davis. Transformational change must consider the pipeline of Latinx and other underrepresented students into all doctoral programs, including but not limited to STEM. This chapter addresses the need to expand on the ADVANCE initiative to grow the pool of doctoral underrepresented minority (URM) students at UC Davis and nationally, as well as to promote their integration into successful careers after graduation, as professors, scientists, or professionals who go on to become leaders in government or industry. At UC Davis, these efforts have already begun in earnest and include visionary changes to revamp recruitment practices for graduate students, transform graduate admissions practices, and improve mentoring of students during and after completion of their programs. This chapter explores these efforts at UC Davis and summarizes the lessons learned from their implementation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Look Back at the Warren Court’s Due Process Revolution Through the Lens of Immigrants

  University of the Pacific Law Review · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Political Science

  TABLE OF CONTENTS I. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND THE IMMIGRATION LAW PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS CASES DURING THE WARREN COURT A. The Historical Context. B. The Warren Court’s Immigration Due Process Cases II. THE STATUS OF THE IMMIGRATION PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS REVOLUTION FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE WARREN COURT. A. The Domestication of Immigration Due Process. B. Crimmigration’s Rise and the Warren Due Process Revolution C. A Federalism Due Process Revolution for Immigrants? III. CONCLUSION

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Leticia M. Saucedo

  28 shared

• Guillermo Alonso Meneses

  25 shared

• David Kyle

  El Colegio de la Frontera Norte

  25 shared

• Ana Rodríguez

  Saint Thomas Hospital

  25 shared

• Jeffrey Day

  El Colegio de la Frontera Norte

  25 shared

• Christina Fialho

  Tecnológico de Monterrey

  25 shared

• Caitlin Patler

  25 shared

• Guadalupe Mendívil

  El Colegio de la Frontera Norte

  25 shared

Labs

• Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation StudiesPI

Awards & honors

• American Bar Association Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Ach…
• UC Davis Chancellor’s Achievement Award for Diversity and Co…
• UC Davis Office of Research and Policy for Equity Ubuntu Awa…
• Inaugural fellow of the Hispanic Association Colleges and Un…
• Fellow of the American Bar Foundation