WINNERS

2025 WINNERS

The Mother Cabrini Mercy Prize Foundation, in affiliation with Georgetown Law School and the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, was honored to announce the following winners of the 2025 Mother Cabrini Mercy Prize on November 13, 2025. That is the Feast Day of Saint Frances, Mother Cabrini, the first U.S. citizen saint and the Patroness of Immigrants. This is the inaugural year of this Prize. The winners are:

$5,000 First Prize
Pedro Gerson, “Decriminalizing Migrant Smuggling”

$3,000 Second Prize
Bill Frelick, “What Would an Expanded, More Inclusive Refugee Definition Look Like? How the U.S. or Canada could expand refugee protection, and serve as a model for others”

$1,000 Third Prize
Jonathan Hafetz, “Crisis Governance of the Border: The Law and Politics of Immigration Emergency” [link forthcoming]

Honorable Mention
Iman A. Saad,
“A Detainee’s Catch-22: What Can New Jersey’s Bail Reform Teach Us About Immigration Detention?”

Honorable Mention
Jennifer A. Sawicz, “Thus Conscience Does Make Cowards of Us All: How a Duress Exception to the Persecutor Bar Should Function in Modern Asylum Law” [link forthcoming]

The Foundation is grateful for the work of the Student Editors, the Law Professors, and the other members of our Board of Advisors, who helped us identify these excellent examples of immigration scholarship and advocacy, each of which exemplifies the Catholic social justice imperative of mercy for immigrants, which was Mother Cabrini’s main mission.