Michael Asparrin L’24

Michael graduated from the School of Public & International Affairs at Princeton University, where he received minors in History and the Practice of Diplomacy and Spanish Language and Culture. The son of an immigrant, during college Michael engaged in a number of grassroots efforts aimed at achieving equity for some of the country’s most marginalized communities, with a focus on undocumented immigrants and the Latinx community in New Jersey. He interned with CATA – the Farmworker Support Committee, where he visited agricultural farms and assisted in providing pesticide and worker safety training to migrant farmworkers in New Jersey. He was later selected for the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative at Princeton, through which he completed a summer internship at the Department of Justice in the Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division.

Following graduation, Michael worked at Make the Road New Jersey, an immigrant rights nonprofit organization, where he was the inaugural Coordinator of the Student Success Center, a community/school partnership aimed at supporting Elizabeth Public Schools students with the college application process. There, he helped lead the district’s college matriculation efforts, supporting first-generation, low-income students of color successfully navigate the college admissions process despite the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

From working with grassroots organizations, Michael saw the power in community organizing and hopes to pursue a career in community empowerment through which he can expand access to high-quality, affordable legal representation for low-income and immigrant communities.

Michael spent his 1L summer with the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund (MALDEF) in Los Angeles working on issues of Latinx civil rights. At Penn Carey Law, he is the Co-President of LALSA and Co-Director of the Penn Carey Law Immigrant Rights Project.