Christopher W. Dempsey, principal of Dempsey Law PLLC, served with the Office of Immigration Litigation at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. for over a decade. He retired in March 2018 as the Chief of the National Security and Affirmative Litigation Unit within his Section, where he supervised a team of attorneys conducting national security and immigration-related, affirmative and defensive litigation in district courts and courts of appeal across the nation. Mr. Dempsey supervised all national security litigation of an office with over 75 attorneys, regularly trained Department attorneys in Washington, D.C. and the National Advocacy Center, and instructed agency attorneys and law enforcement officers at venues throughout the United States. Prior to his work at the Justice Department, Mr. Dempsey served on active duty with the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps then remained active trying criminal cases in the Army Reserves.
Mr. Dempsey has significant litigation experience. He has appeared in thirty-nine U.S. District Courts and eight U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, tried seventeen jury cases and over fifty bench trials, and handled dozens of appeals. Mr. Dempsey has worked a broad range of cases, from felony and capital criminal matters to civil suits under the Immigration and Nationality Act—including naturalization, adjustment of status, visa and passport matters, immigration detention, programmatic challenges, and denaturalization cases — as well as actions under the Administrative Procedure Act, Federal Tort Claims Act, and Bivens cases. Mr. Dempsey has also handled dozens of habeas petitions—including emergency Motions for Temporary Restraining Orders and Preliminary Injunctions—as well as nation-wide class actions.
Mr. Dempsey is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (“AILA”), and currently serves as an Executive Director and Chair of the Litigation & Collective Advocacy Committee of the Central Florida Chapter (“CFC”) of AILA, regularly provides instruction as faculty at national immigration seminars, and is routinely sought out for his expertise in immigration matters by attorneys across the nation. He is also an officer on the Board of the Federal Bar Association’s Immigration Law Section.
Mr. Dempsey is a combat-Veteran having deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He volunteers assisting disabled and homeless Veterans in need through several local, national, and international non-profit organizations. He is also a Mentor with Veterans Treatment Court for the Fourth Judicial Circuit in and for Duval County, Florida. He also founded Mission-Phoenix, Inc., a not-for-profit entity that assists Veterans suffering from PTSD with pro bono legal assistance.
In response to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of U.S. and coalition forces in August 2021, Mr. Dempsey co-founded with AILA-CFC Jacksonville Regional Vice Chair Andrea Reyes, the Northeast Florida Afghan Response Task Force (“NEFL-ARTF”), which staffed a pro bono legal clinic at the University of North Florida to assist local Afghan community members in filing humanitarian parole applications on behalf of family members currently in grave danger due to the Taliban threat inside Afghanistan. Mr. Dempsey also serves as the Chief Legal Advisor for Operation Snow Leopard, a not-for-profit entity created to assist Afghans to resettle in the United States and abroad. He represents Association of Wartime Allies and Veterans for American Ideals, a project of Human Rights First, in a class action lawsuit challenging adjudicatory delays in the Special Immigrant Visa process related to our Iraqi and Afghan Allies, currently pending in Washington, D.C., as well as lead counsel in a lawsuit—in partnership with AILA-National—challenging delays in the Afghan Humanitarian Parole process in the District of Massachusetts.
Finally, Mr. Dempsey Co-Founded the Consular Accountability Project, a not-for-profit created to resource legal challenges across the Nation to the doctrine of consular nonreviewability, which precludes judicial review of adverse consular decisions even if arbitrary or unfounded. He was lead counsel in a flagship case challenging the doctrine before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Mr. Dempsey is an accomplished runner and has participated in more than twenty-five ultramarathons. The capstone of Mr. Dempsey’s running career was his completion of the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning in 2016.
Mr. Dempsey lives in the San Marco neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida with his spouse, Nancy, their dog (Roswell), and cat (Odin). He has three (3) adult children who reside in the Commonwealth of Virginia.