Pooja Asnani is an immigration advocate with over 15 years of leadership in immigration advocacy and the anti-violence community, focused on survivors of gender-based violence, domestic violence, and human trafficking. She most recently served as Senior Program Director of Sanctuary for Families’ Immigration Intervention Project (IIP), leading a team of roughly 20-25 attorneys, case managers, and support staff across New York City.
Under Pooja’s leadership, the immigration team at Sanctuary for Families grew significantly, expanding its internal programming to launch the Gender Based Asylum Initiative in 2023, which scaled a pilot pro se asylum program into a dedicated, fully-staffed team delivering trauma-informed legal representation to survivors seeking asylum. In 2025, she co-founded Sanctuary’s internal Habeas Working Group, a cross-team effort to build litigation expertise in habeas cases.
Beyond Sanctuary, she helped launch the Coalition for the Integrity of the Immigration Courts (CIIC) in January 2026, an external community coalition bringing together former immigration judges, practitioners, and academics from around the country to advance reforms that insulate the immigration court system from partisan pressure.
A frequent trainer and recognized resource on gender-based asylum immigration law, Pooja has presented on gender-based asylum, VAWA, and Battered Spouse Waivers to big law firms around New York City, and is a recurring presenter at the Practicing Law Institute’s annual program on defending immigrants in removal proceedings.
Before returning to lead IIP, Pooja was Managing Attorney of The Door’s Legal Services Center from 2017 to 2018, following several years as a Staff Attorney, and later Senior Staff Attorney, at Sanctuary for Families beginning in 2014. Earlier still, she spent two years as a litigation associate at Chadbourne & Parke LLP, and began her career as a Chadbourne & Parke Fellow at The Door, representing immigrant youth in family court, immigration court, and before USCIS.
Pooja holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. in Philosophy and French Literature, summa cum laude, from the University of Miami, and is admitted to practice in New York.
