Leon Wildes

Early life and academic pursuits

Born and raised in Pennsylvania where he was an honor graduate of Olyphant High School, Wildes received his bachelor’s degree in New York Magna Cum Laude from Yeshiva College. His Brother, Jerry (Jerome) Wildes served in the US airforce and then went to medical school. Leon was awarded J.D. and Ll.M. degrees from the New York University School of Law. He currently serves on the Yeshiva College Board of Overseers and is Treasurer of the Yeshiva College Board.

Wildes has published numerous articles in the immigration field from 1959 to date and has lectured broadly to lawyers for the Practising Law Institute, the New York State Bar Association, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He has testified before Congress on immigration legislation on numerous occasions since 1970, representing the Association of Immigration & Nationality Lawyers, the recognized national bar association of lawyers in the immigration and nationality field. He has contributed law review articles to the San Diego Law Review, Cardozo School of Law Law Review and the Brooklyn Law Review on subjects relating to U.S. Immigration Law.

Law career

During 1959 he served as Migrations Specialist with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, where he concentrated his efforts on issues in U.S. immigration and refugee law. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of HIAS as an Honorary Director.

In 1960 Wildes opened his law office, Wildes & Weinberg P.C., concentrating in the field of U.S. immigration and nationality law.

Wildes was awarded the Edith Lowenstein Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Immigration Practice and the Elmer Fried Prize for Excellence in Teaching Immigration Law. Wildes served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he originated the immigration law course and has guided Cardozo’s active participation in the immigration law field since. Wildes also founded an Immigration Law Externship Clinic through which students work on immigration cases for a variety of non-profit organizations under the supervision of immigration attorneys.

Wildes garnered much acclaim for his successful representation of former Beatle John Lennon and his artist wife, Yoko Ono, in their deportation proceedings instituted by the Nixon administration. Wildes contributed five full law review articles on the subject of developments in U.S. immigration law which resulted from his handling of the Lennon case. While working on the Lennon case, he discovered the government’s unpublished practice of granting deportable aliens non-priority status to avoid their removal in sympathetic cases. He has guided the development of this remedy in the law, later referred to as Deferred Action or Prosecutorial discretion. This program allows law-abiding individuals to remain in the United States and avoid deportation if they are elderly, seriously ill, or undergoing severe hardship.

Wildes co-produced Mark St. Germain's off-Broadway play "Ears on a Beatle" depicting the surveillance of John Lennon by the FBI at the time. Wildes also appeared alongside his clients in many press conferences and was interviewed with Lennon by Tom Snyder on The Tomorrow Show, and he appears in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which focuses on this period of Lennon’s life.

The Lennon Case: Law Review Journal Archive

Wildes, Leon. “United States Immigration Service v. John Lennon: The Cultural Lag.” Brooklyn Law Review, Vol. XL NO. 2 Fall, 1973.

Wildes, Leon. “The Nonpriority Program of the Immigration and Nationalization Service Goes Public: The Litigative Use of the Freedom of Information Act.” San Diego Law Review, Volume 14, Number 1, December 1976.

Wildes, Leon. “The Operations Instructions of the Immigration Service: Internal Guides or Binding Rules?” San Diego Law Review, Volume 17, Number 1, 1980.

Wildes, Leon. “The Need for a Specialized Immigration Court: A Practical Response.” San Diego Law Review, Volume 18, Number 1, 1980.

Wildes, Leon. "The Deferred Action Program of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services: A Possible Remedy for Impossible Immigration Cases." San Diego Law Review, Volume 41 No. 2 Spring 2004.