Muzaffar A. Chishti, Senior Fellow, Migration Policy Institute
Philadelphia, PA
Muzaffar A. Chishti is a senior fellow at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI), and director of MPI’s office at New York University School of Law. He is a nationally recognized expert on U.S. immigration policy and law.
Before joining MPI, Chishti was a lawyer in the U.S. labor movement, representing garment and textile workers. He served as director of the Immigration Project of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial & Textile Employees (UNITE), and its predecessor, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), where he helped found the first union-sponsored immigration legal service program in the country for union members.
He has authored or coauthored over a hundred publications on various aspects of U.S. immigration system, admission and enforcement policies.
Chishti has played major roles in the work of many immigrant- and refugee-serving organizations. He serves on the board of directors of the New York Immigration Coalition. He has served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Immigration Forum and the National Immigration Law Center, and as secretary of the U.S Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and as a member of the American Bar Association’s Coordinating Committee on Immigration.
He has testified extensively on immigration policy issues before Congress and is frequently quoted in national and international media. In 1992, as part of a U.S. team, he assisted the Russian Parliament in drafting its legislation on forced aliens and refugees. He is a recipient of the New York State Governor’s Award for Outstanding Asian Americans and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Chishti was born in Kashmir, India. He received his bachelor’s of science (honours) in physics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi; LL.B. from the University of Delhi; LL.M. from Cornell Law School; and master’s of international affairs from Columbia School of International Affairs. He and his wife, Helene, are parents of two adult daughters, Maryam and Hava. He was naturalized in 1993.