WELCOME
Peter Markowitz
Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Director, Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law • Yeshiva University

Donald Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

SESSION I: IMMIGRANT DETENTION

Moderator
Karen Grisez
Special Counsel, Public Service Counsel
Litigation
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP

Speakers
Eleanor Acer
Senior Director, Refugee Protection
Human Rights First

Judy Rabinovitz
Deputy Director, Immigrants’ Rights Project
American Civil Liberties Union

Commissioner Dora Schriro
Commissioner, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection
State of Connecticut

SESSION II: IMMIGRATION COURT AND LEGAL SERVICES LESSONS, INNOVATIONS, AND IMPACT OF UNACCOMPANIED MINORS

Moderator
Austin T. Fragomen
Partner
Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP

Speakers
Lenni Benson
Professor of Law
Director, Safe Passage Project
New York Law School

Juan P. Osuna
Director, Executive Office for Immigration Review
United States Department of Justice

C. Mario Russell
Director, Immigrant and Refugee Services Division
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York

SESSION III: NON-COURT, PROCESS-LESS REMOVALS

Moderator
Donald Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

Speakers
Mary Meg McCarthy
Executive Director, National Immigrant Justice Center
Heartland Alliance

Sarah Mehta
Researcher, Human Rights Program
American Civil Liberties Union

Michele Pistone
Professor of Law and Director of Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services (CARES)
Villanova School of Law
Co-Managing Editor, Journal on Migration and Human Security
Center for Migration Studies

SESSION IV: ADVANCES AND CHALLENGES IN PRO BONO REPRESENTATION AND RIGHT TO COUNSEL

Moderator
Careen Shannon
Partner
Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP

Speakers
Lynn M. Kelly
Executive Director
City Bar Justice Center

Rachel B. Tiven
Executive Director
Immigrant Justice Corps

Peter Markowitz
Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Director, Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law • Yeshiva University

RECEPTION

Eleanor Acer
Senior Director, Refugee Protection
Human Rights First

Eleanor Acer is the senior director of Human Rights First’s Refugee Protection Program, where she advocates on issues pertaining to refugee protection, asylum, and migrants’ rights. She is an expert on issues dealing with the human rights of immigrants and refugees including legal representation, detention, and United States asylum law and policy. Ms. Acer has written numerous publications, testified before Congress, and has been quoted in various news outlets including the New York Times and NPR. She serves on the Advisory Board of the International Detention Coalition and was selected by the American Bar Association to serve on its Commission on Immigration. Ms. Acer served as vice chair of the Refugee Council USA from 2006 until 2008. She was an adjunct professor at the New School’s Graduate Program in International Affairs, where she taught about refugee protection and migrants’ rights. Ms. Acer earned her JD from Fordham University School of Law and her BA from Brown University. In 2007 she received the Louis J. Lefkowitz Award for Public Service by Fordham University School of Law.

Lenni Benson
Professor of Law
Director, Safe Passage Project
New York Law School

Professor Lenni Benson is a professor of law at New York Law School, whose expertise is immigration law and political asylum. She also serves as the director of the Safe Passage Project, which provides pro bono legal representation to unaccompanied migrant children.

Professor Benson has written numerous publications in the field of immigration law and co-authored the handbook Immigration and Nationality Law: Problems and Strategies. In addition, she has served as an expert witness on immigration law topics in administrative, legislative, and civil litigation. Professor Benson has served as the chair of the Immigration and Nationality Law Committee for the Association for the Bar of the City of New York from 2012 to 2015. She also serves on various task forces that are focused on providing resources to immigrants, in particular unaccompanied migrant children.

Professor Benson earned her JD, cum laude, from the Arizona State College of Law and her BS, cum laude, from Arizona State University. She has received numerous awards including being named Outstanding Professor in Immigration Law by the American Immigration Lawyers Association in 1999 and, along with Safe Passage Project members, received the State Bar President’s Award for Pro Bono Law School Project in 2008. In 2014 she was honored for her pro bono work as a “Lawyer Who Leads” by the New York Law Journal.

Austin T. Fragomen
Partner
Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP

Austin T. Fragomen, an expert in immigration law, is a partner at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP, a leading immigration law firm.  Mr. Fragomen has co-authored numerous publications in this field, including a series of renowned legal handbooks he founded on the subject of business immigration, and is a Distinguished Author with Thomson Reuters/West. He has served as staff counsel to the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and International Law and was an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law.  Mr. Fragomen is chairman of the City Bar Justice Center and of Practicing Law Institute’s Annual Immigration Program.

Karen T. Grisez
Special Counsel, Public Service Counsel
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP

Karen T. Grisez is public service counsel in the Washington, DC office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, where she manages the office’s pro bono program and provides both supervision and direct representation to pro bono clients in immigration cases, as well as in traditional poverty law areas. She has extensive litigation experience in federal courts, before the Board of Immigration Appeals and in Immigration Courts around the country, and also practices in other courts in the District of Columbia and Maryland. Ms. Grisez is also a frequent speaker and trainer on legal topics relating primarily to asylum, other forms of immigration relief, immigration court reform, detention, ethics, representation of victims of torture and trauma, and on various models for delivery of pro bono services generally.  She has testified twice before Congress on immigration-related topics.

Ms. Grisez is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Migration Studies based in New York. She is also a member of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, special advisor to the ABA Commission on Immigration and its past chair.  She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association, serves on its national Pro Bono Committee, and is chair of the DC chapter’s Pro Bono Committee.  Ms. Grisez also serves on the Board of Directors of the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition, the Board of Directors of the Washington Council of Lawyers and is a Trustee of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

Ms. Grisez earned her JD in 1990 from the Columbus School of Law of the Catholic University of America, and her BA, summa cum laude, in 1987 from the University of Maryland.  She is admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia and of Maryland, as well as to a number of federal courts.

Lynn M. Kelly
Executive Director
City Bar Justice Center

Lynn M. Kelly is the executive director of the City Bar Justice Center, the pro bono arm of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. The Justice Center’s mission is to mobilize the pro bono legal community to help bridge the justice gap. The Justice Center matches over a thousand pro bono cases each year, leveraging $18 million in free legal services to the poor including cases for asylum seekers, trafficking victims, and other immigrants. She serves on the Katzmann Committee. Ms. Kelly was previously the executive director of MFY Legal Services and she began her career with the Civil Division of The Legal Aid Society where she litigated immigration class actions involving the amnesty program and Medicaid. She has a JD from New York University School of Law and a BA from Mount Holyoke College.

Donald Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

Donald Kerwin directs the Center for Migration Studies (CMS), a New York-based educational institute/think tank devoted to the study of international migration, to the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and to public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees, and newcomers. CMS was established in 1964 by the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles, Scalabrinians. It is a member of the Scalabrini International Migration Network (SIMN), which consists of more than 270 organizations that serve, safeguard, and advocate for migrants throughout the world. Mr. Kerwin previously worked for 16 years at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), serving as that agency’s executive director for 15 years. CLINIC, a subsidiary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), is a public interest legal corporation that supports a national network of charitable legal programs for immigrants. He has also served as interim executive director at CLINIC; as vice president for programs and non-resident senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute; and as an associate fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center and co-director of Woodstock’s Theology of Migration Project. Mr. Kerwin has also served on numerous boards, commissions, and task forces. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas.

Peter Markowitz
Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Director, Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law • Yeshiva University

Peter L. Markowitz is an associate clinical professor of law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where he founded and directs the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic. The clinic focuses on developing and implementing innovative local and national approaches to immigration law and policy. It provides deportation defense representation to individuals and represents community-based and national advocacy organizations on impact projects. The clinic has been awarded the Daniel Levy Award for outstanding and innovative advocacy in the field of immigration. Professor Markowitz and his clinic has been responsible for numerous innovations in the field, for example: spearheading the development of the nation’s first public defender system for detained immigrants; developing the concept of detainer discretion; and initiating the nation’s first full-service in-house immigration unit located in a public defender office. Professor Markowitz received his JD from New York University School of Law, magna cum laude, in 2001, receiving the University Graduation Prize and the Sommer Memorial Award. Following graduation, Professor Markowitz clerked for the Honorable Frederic Block, US district judge for the Eastern District of New York. From 2002 to 2004, he was a Soros Justice Fellow at The Bronx Defenders. Professor Markowitz has previously taught at both New York University and Hofstra Schools of Law. His scholarship focuses on intersection of criminal and immigration law and on current trends in immigration enforcement.

Mary Meg McCarthy
Executive Director, National Immigrant Justice Center
Heartland Alliance

Mary Meg McCarthy is the executive director of Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), a leading provider of legal services and an advocate for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.  Through her leadership, Ms. McCarthy has grown NIJC from a staff of 11 to 60, making it one of the nation’s leading human rights programs dedicated to advancing justice for immigrants. Working with a network of 1,500 pro bono attorneys, NIJC provides counsel and representation to 10,000 immigrants each year. NIJC’s legal services inform its advocacy, litigation, and educational initiatives to promote human rights. Ms. McCarthy has extensive knowledge of immigration law and has testified before Congress about human rights and immigration detention reform. She has presented on immigration issues to members of the Mexican Congress, academics, and civil society. She has been quoted in major news outlets including MSNBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. Ms. McCarthy is the chair of the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration. Prior to joining NIJC, she practiced civil litigation and was an NIJC pro bono attorney. Ms. McCarthy has received numerous awards including: American Constitution Society Chicago Lawyer Chapter Ruth Goldman Award 2015, Chicago Inn of Court 2015 Don Hubert Public Service Award, Pax Christi 2013 Teacher of Peace Award, the 2015 Damen award from Loyola University, and the Federal Bar Association’s 2015 Sarah T. Hughes Civil Rights Award.

Sarah Mehta
Researcher, Human Rights Program
American Civil Liberties Union

Sarah Mehta is a researcher with the Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She has authored two reports focusing on deportation and due process: a joint ACLU-Human Rights Watch report, Deportation by Default: Mental Disability, Unfair Hearings, and Indefinite Detention in the US Immigration System, and an ACLU report, American Exile: Rapid Deportations That Bypass the Courtroom. Previously, Ms. Mehta has worked at the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project as the detention attorney and as a staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan. She was the Aryeh Neier Fellow at Human Rights Watch and the ACLU’s Human Rights Program from 2009-2011. Ms. Mehta earned her JD from Yale Law School and her BA, with honors, from Brown University.

Juan P. Osuna
Director, Executive Office for Immigration Review
United States Department of Justice

Juan P. Osuna is the director of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. As director, a position he has held since January 2011, he oversees the nation’s immigration court system and handles immigration policy issues for the Department of Justice.  Mr. Osuna also dealt with immigration policy in his role as associate deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice from June 2010 to December 2010. He has also handled immigration policy and presided over civil immigration-related litigation in the federal courts when he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Division, Office of Immigration Litigation from May 2009 until June 2010. Mr. Osuna has also been the chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals from September 2008 until May 2009. Prior to serving in that role, he served as both acting chairman and acting vice chairman as a member of the board from August 2000 to September 2008. Previously, he worked at West Group (now Thomson West) in senior editorial and management positions.

Mr. Osuna earned his JD from Washington College of Law at American University, his MA from American University’s School of International Service, and his BA from George Washington University. He is admitted to the bar of Pennsylvania. Mr. Osuna teaches refugee law and policy at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC.

Michele Pistone
Professor of Law and Director of Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services (CARES)
Villanova School of Law
Co-Managing Editor, Journal on Migration and Human Security
Center for Migration Studies

Michele R. Pistone is a professor of law at Villanova University School of Law, where she has taught since 1999.  At Villanova, she founded the school’s in-house Clinical Program, which she directed for nine years, and also the Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services (CARES).  Through CARES, Professor Pistone works with law students to provide free legal representation to asylum seekers and others fleeing persecution and violence.  Professor Pistone has served on the University’s Partnership Committee with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) since its inception in 2004, and through the Partnership has organized conferences on human trafficking, Iraqi refugees, and the migration of unaccompanied children in collaboration with CRS.

Professor Pistone has written extensively on immigration and refugee protection, including on issues related to detention of asylum seekers, the one-year deadline for asylum applications, expedited removal, overseas refugee resettlement, as well as on the migration of skilled and educated migrants.  Her book, Stepping Out of the Brain Drain: Applying Catholic Social Thought in a New Era of Migration (Lexington Books), which she co-authored with JMHS co-editor, John J. Hoeffner, as well as other articles and book chapters, looks at migration through the lens of Catholic Social Thought.

Professor Pistone has taught at American University Washington College of Law, Georgetown Law, and as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Malta.  Before becoming a professor, she served as the acting legal director of Human Rights First, where she coordinated a Congressional campaign to defeat certain legislative initiatives that would have imposed stricter restrictions on asylum protection.

Judy Rabinovitz
Deputy Director and Director of Detention and Federal Enforcement Programs
ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project

Judy Rabinovitz is the deputy director and the director of Detention and Federal Enforcement Programs of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, where she has worked since 1988, litigating class action and impact cases on a variety of issues affecting the rights of immigrants. In recent years her work has focused largely on advocacy and litigation challenging immigration detention policies and practices. Ms. Rabinovitz played a leading role in the indefinite detention litigation that resulted in the Supreme Court’s Zadvydas v. Davis decision, and in subsequent litigation to ensure application of that decision to indefinitely detained Mariel Cubans. In addition, she coordinated a nationwide litigation campaign to challenge the mandatory immigration detention statute that Congress enacted as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), culminating in Demore v. Kim, which she argued before the Supreme Court in 2003. Since that time Ms. Rabinovitz has been litigating challenges to prolonged and mandatory detention — to limit the reach of the Demore decision — and more recently to family detention, where she litigated RILR v. Johnson, obtaining a preliminary injunction against the government’s policy of detaining families for deterrence purposes. Her work also focuses on establishing other due process limits, both procedural and substantive, to removal. Ms. Rabinovitz has twice received the Jack Wasserman Memorial Award for Excellence in Litigation from the American Immigration Lawyers Association; and in 2006, she received the Carol King Award from the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. For the past 19 years she has served as an adjunct assistant professor of law at NYU Law School.

C. Mario Russell
Director, Immigrant and Refugee Services Division
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York

Mr. Russell is director of Catholic Charities New York’s Immigrant & Refugee Services Division, which serves New York City and the Hudson Valley through a variety of immigration programs, including legal defense, unaccompanied minors assistance, refugee resettlement, and ESL. Mr. Russell conducts federal immigration litigation, manages the St. John’s University Law School asylum clinic, and teaches immigration/human rights law in the United States and Italy. He has consulted with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Europe and the National Commission on Migration in Thailand, and he has advised on public interest law at Harvard Law School as a Wasserstein Fellow. He has worked at CLINIC, Arent/Fox, and the US District Court in Maryland. He writes a bi-weekly column for the El Diario newspaper. In 2013, Mr. Russell received the St. John’s University St. Vincent DePaul Medal of Mission and the Seafarers and International House Outstanding Friend of Immigrants Award.

Dora Schriro
Commissioner, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection
State of Connecticut

Dora B. Schriro is the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, a state agency dedicated to public safety and emergency services and consisting of the Connecticut State Police, Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Scientific Services, Statewide 911 and the Police and Fire Academies.

Dr. Schriro previously served as the director of both the Missouri and Arizona Departments of Corrections. She was also warden and later, commissioner of the St. Louis City Division of Corrections and then commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction.

Additionally, Dr. Schriro served as senior advisor to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and was the first director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Detention Policy and Planning. During her tenure at DHS, she authored A Report on the Preliminary Assessment of ICE Detention Policies and Practices: A Recommended Course of Action for Systems Reforms, DHS’ template for improving the nation’s immigration detention system.

Dr. Schriro is the only administrator in the country to have led four correctional systems, and is first woman in the nation to lead three state agencies. She has taught graduate criminal justice and correction law classes throughout her career and publishes in the areas of correction and immigration innovation and systems reform.

Dr. Schriro was recognized by her peers as the country’s top correctional administrator in 1999; received the National Governors Association Distinguished Service to State Government Award in 2006; earned the Innovations in American Government Award for Arizona’s comprehensive pre-release strategy, Getting Ready, in 2008; and was presented with the US Department of Justice Allied Professional Award in 2012 for exceptional service to crime victims. Dr. Schriro currently serves as a commissioner on the boards of the Women’s Refugee Commission and the ABA Commission on Immigration and was recently appointed to DHS’ Advisory Committee on Family Residential Facilities. She also serves as a member of the ABA standards subcommittees for both Corrections and Immigrations. Dr. Schriro is a graduate of Northeastern University (BA, cum laude), University of Massachusetts-Boston (MS), Columbia University (EdD), and St. Louis University (JD).

Careen Shannon
Partner
Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP

Careen Shannon is a Partner at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP, the premier global immigration law firm. She also serves as the firm’s director of communications.  Ms. Shannon is very active in pro bono activities, and since 2014 she has led Fragomen’s natiownwide initiative to provide pro bono legal services to unaccompanied minors and to detained immigrant women and children from Central America.

Ms. Shannon is the co-author, along with Austin T. Fragomen, Jr. and Daniel Montalvo, of a number of legal handbooks and treatises published by Thomson Reuters/West and by the Practising Law Institute, as well as the author of a number of book chapters and hundreds of articles on US immigration law and global mobility for a variety of legal and human resources publications. She has also spoken before numerous bar associations, professional organizations, and human resources groups on immigration law topics. Ms. Shannon serves on the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Immigration Representation and is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Association of Pro Bono Counsel. She is also a member of the Study Group on Immigrant Representation, the aim of which is to facilitate increased access to counsel for indigent immigrants in the United States. In 2014 Ms. Shannon received a Certificate of Achievement from the American Immigration Lawyers Association as a Pro Bono Champion. She is a member of the Board of Directors at Safe Passage Project, which provides pro bono legal representation to unaccompanied migrant children. For more than a decade, Ms. Shannon was an adjunct professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she taught a survey course in US immigration law from 2004 to 2011, and served as the director of the Immigration Law Field Clinic and taught an associated seminar from 2012-2015.

Ms. Shannon received her JD from the public interest-oriented City University of New York School of Law and her BA from Oberlin College. She is admitted to the bars of New York and New Jersey, as well as to two federal courts.

Rachel B. Tiven
Executive Director
Immigrant Justice Corps

Rachel B. Tiven is the executive director of Immigrant Justice Corps, the nation’s first fellowship program dedicated to meeting the need for high-quality legal assistance for immigrants seeking citizenship and fighting deportation. From 2005 to 2013, Ms. Tiven led Immigration Equality, a national non-profit organization fighting for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-positive immigrants and asylum seekers. Under her leadership, Immigration Equality built a $17 million pro bono program, quintupled client services to aid more than 5,000 people annually, and succeeded in changing the US immigration system for LGBT and HIV-positive people. Ms. Tiven is a graduate of Harvard-Radcliffe College and Columbia Law School. She clerked for the Honorable Barbara S. Jones in the Southern District of New York. She is a recipient of Columbia’s Public Interest Law Foundation Award, and was named one of the Advocate magazine’s “40 under 40.”