Maya El Cheikh

Maya El Cheikh is an immigration attorney licensed in New York and New Jersey with over a decade of experience representing clients in humanitarian immigration matters. Her practice focuses on client-centered, holistic advocacy, with a strong emphasis on complex protection-based and survivor-centered immigration cases.

Before earning her Juris Doctor from CUNY School of Law, Maya received a Master of Social Work from New York University. She worked with crime victims at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. This interdisciplinary background informs her trauma-informed approach to immigration law and her extensive work with survivor-based immigration relief, including U visas, T visas, and VAWA self-petitions.

Maya developed her immigration law practice at Human Rights First, where she represented individuals from diverse backgrounds in asylum and related protection claims, adjustment of status, humanitarian parole, and complex responses to Requests for Evidence issued by USCIS. Her experience also includes removal defense support through motion practice and appellate brief writing before the Immigration Court and the Board of Immigration Appeals.

In addition to direct client representation, Maya has supported large-scale and fast-paced pro bono immigration dockets by developing attorney training programs and practice resources, mentoring legal teams, and strengthening filings before USCIS and the immigration courts through detailed quality control and strategic review.

Maya serves on the Board of Directors of New Neighbors Partnership. She is fluent in Arabic and English and conversational in Spanish.