Dennis Mulligan

Attorney Dennis Mulligan has almost 30 years of experience in immigration law and refugee issues. Mr. Mulligan was admitted to the New York State bar in 1982. From 1996 to 2001 he managed the immigration legal services and refugee resettlement program of Lutheran Social Ministries, a non-profit agency in Trenton, N.J. He was Legal Services Director of Nationalities Service Center in Philadelphia from 2001 to 2008, and was Executive Director of the non-profit agency from 2008 to 2013. Mr. Mulligan was adjunct clinical professor at Temple University School of Law from 2006 to 2008, supervising the School’s immigration law clinic. From 2013 to 2018 he had a solo immigration law practice based in New York City. Since 2021, Mr. Mulligan has worked Of-Counsel with SHG Immigration Law, providing specialized case services to our immigration lawyers, primarily writing appellate and trial briefs, motions, complaints, and other high-level legal writing in Immigration Court, Board of Immigration Appeals, and Federal court cases. He has extensive experience in asylum, deportation defense, family immigration, and criminal immigration cases, as well as appeals and Federal court practice.

Education:

Brooklyn College, CUNY, B.A. in Political Science, 1978. 

Brooklyn Law School, J.D., 1981.     

My Immigration Story:

I am a second generation Irish American and dual US-Irish citizen. My forebears on both sides were Irish. My mother’s parents left County Cork for New York in 1900, seeking to escape the grinding rural poverty they had always known. My grandfather worked as a longshoreman on the Hudson River docks, while my grandmother had primarily responsibility for the large family living in what was then the working class immigrant neighborhood of Greenwich Village. When they were more established they bought a house in Brooklyn, where my mom and dad met and raised our clan. (I am one of 11 children.) Growing up in the ethnic and racial diversity of Brooklyn, it was obvious to me that immigration was a great benefit both to the individuals and families directly involved but also to the larger community, which was enriched and strengthened by the hard work, talents, and diverse perspectives (not to mention food and music) of immigrants. When I was a young lawyer I lived several years in Chad, Africa, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. That incredible experience profoundly influenced me and confirmed my desire to dedicate my career to working with people who – seeking protection from persecution or desiring a better future for themselves and their children – take the courageous decision to emigrate to the United States.