James Lyall

Based in Tucson, Arizona, James Lyall conducts litigation and advocacy related to civil and human rights violations in the U.S.-Mexico border region for the ACLU's Border Litigation Project. Since joining the ACLU as staff attorney in September 2011, he has been involved in much of our civil rights litigation, including our immigrant rights and prisoner rights docket. A former Georgetown Law Fellow at Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project in Los Angeles, Lyall provided pro bono legal representation to detained immigrants in removal proceedings.Subsequently, as Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) Law Fellow, he specialized in representing unaccompanied immigrant children in state and federal court proceedings, including Asylum and Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) cases.

Prior to joining the ACLU, Lyall was a volunteer with No More Deaths in Tucson, where he co-authored Culture of Cruelty, a report documenting widespread Border Patrol abuse along the US-Mexico border. A native of Massachusetts, Lyall is a 2007 graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, where he completed a certificate program in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies.