Springhill Suites Houston Downtown/Convention Center
$109/night plus taxes*
Reservation includes complimentary internet, complimentary breakfast buffet and valet parking only for $30+tax/day.
Hotel is a 5 minute walk from South Texas College of Law Houston.
* Rate guaranteed until May 8th. For bookings after May 8th, call (713) 803-2814 and mention the Center for Migration Studies to determine whether the hotel can honor the $109 rate.

Holiday Inn Houston Downtown
$114/night plus taxes
Reservation includes complimentary internet and discount parking rate of $10+tax/day.
Hotel is a 6 minute walk from South Texas College of Law Houston but hotel shuttle to/from conference venue is available.
* Rate guaranteed until May 15th. For bookings after May 15th, call (713) 658- 8888 and mention the Center for Migration Studies to determine whether the hotel can honor the $114 rate.

9:30AM – 11:00AM
SITE VISIT I | ADJUSTING TO NEW REALITIES IN IMMIGRATION LAW & REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston
2900 Louisiana Street
Houston, TX 77006
Transportation to/from Catholic Charities is each attendee’s responsibility. From the hotels, attendees can walk (1.2 miles); take Uber (appx. $7), or take public transportation (options include MetroBus Route 082 to Milam Street @ Tuam Street OR MetroTrain Red Line South from Bell Station to McGowen Station).

The Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance of the Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston is the largest non-profit legal service provider in the Houston region. Catholic Charities has three offices – Midtown Houston (open daily), Fort Bend (open daily), and North Loop West (by appointment only for unaccompanied minor cases) – and a large staff of experienced attorneys, BIA-accredited representatives, and caseworkers. Catholic Charities has expertise in a wide array of immigration legal issues including family immigration, refugee adjustment and reunification, immigration services for crime victims and assistance with applications for Citizenship and Deferred Action (DACA). In addition, Catholic Charities is well-known for its extensive legal services program for unaccompanied migrant children and its large refugee resettlement program. Hear from experienced staff about how Catholic Charities is working to be nimble and adjust to the changing needs of its clients and immigrant communities.

12:00PM – 1:30PM
SITE VISIT II | CO-WORKING IN IMMIGRATION LAW
South Texas College of Law Houston
1303 San Jacinto Street, 9th Floor
Houston, TX 77002
Boxed lunches available for site visit attendees

Four immigration legal services provider non-profit organizations share space, ideas, and referrals from a unique co-working space on the ninth floor of the South Texas College of Law Houston. Please join these organizations for a special site visit to learn about their work and collaboration. At this site visit, you will hear from representatives of:

• Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), which provides free legal representation to unaccompanied immigrant youth who are in removal proceedings in Harris or Montgomery counties.
• The American Bar Association’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy (CILA), a technical assistance provider for attorneys working with unaccompanied immigrant children in Texas.
• The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights serves as Child Advocate (guardian ad litem) for unaccompanied immigrant children in removal proceedings, advocating for best interests regarding family reunification, release, legal relief, and safe repatriation.
• Human Rights First, whose Houston office provides legal services – through direct representation and pro bono mentorship – to clients seeking asylum in the United States.

6:00PM – 8:00PM
OPENING RECEPTION
MKT BAR
1001 Austin Street
Houston, TX 77010
The opening reception venue is part of Phoenicia Specialty Foods, a two-story international food market owned by Lebanese immigrants.

South Texas College of Law Houston
1303 San Jacinto Street
Houston, TX 77002

8:00AM
REGISTRATION OPENS
Joe Green Auditorium Lobby, 4th Floor

8:45AM – 9:00AM
INTRODUCTION
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

Donald Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

9:00AM – 10:20AM | 1.25 Hrs Texas CLE Credit
UNDERSTANDING IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IN THE AGE OF TRUMP
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

This panel will provide a primer on the US immigration enforcement system and its impact on families and communities. It will include short presentations by scholars and researchers on different aspects of the statutes and policies which serve as the groundwork for the new administration’s Executive orders on immigration, expanded detention, and federal, state and local immigration enforcement partnerships. Panelists will offer recommendations for reform of the immigration enforcement system and speak to how scholarship and research can be used to inform and strengthen whole-of-community responses to immigrants. The session is meant to provide an evidence-based foundation for much of the conversation that will follow.

• Moderator: Wafa Abdin, Vice President of Immigration and Refugee Services, Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance of Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston
• Michael Coon, Assistant Professor of Economics, The University of Tampa
• Emily Ryo, Associate Professor of Law and Sociology, University of Southern California Gould School of Law

10:20AM – 10:30AM
BREAK
Joe Green Auditorium Lobby, 4th Floor

10:30AM – 11:30AM
IN HOUSTON: MOBILIZING IN THE DEFENSE OF THE IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

This panel will discuss the formation and work of the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative. It will discuss Houston’s “whole of community” approach to immigration services, how the community has organized to defend the rights of immigrants, and the engagement and mobilization of a diverse group of stakeholders, including legal services providers, the funding community, the City of Houston immigrant advocates, and social services organizations.

• Moderator: Kate Vickery, Executive Director, Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative
• Alissa Gomez, Executive Director, Houston Volunteer Lawyers
• Meghna Goswami, Program Officer, Houston Endowment
• Andrea Guttin, Legal Director, Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative
• Irfana Hussain, Director of Outreach, Daya
• Mary Moreno, Communications Director, Texas Organizing Project
• Alex Triantaphyllis, Director of Immigration & Economic Opportunity, BakerRipley (formerly Neighborhood Centers Inc.)

11:30AM – 12:45PM | 1.25 Hrs Texas CLE Credit
MOBILIZING WHOLE-OF-COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO CHANGING POLICIES
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

This session will discuss how diverse communities have pivoted from pre-election work to coordinated responses to new challenges. Exploring “whole of community” responses to current threats and opportunities, it will describe the role of mainstream, immigrant-serving institutions in broad-ranging community responses to Trump administration initiatives. The conversation will assess what’s been working – and why – and how individual communities can develop their own strategies.

• Moderator: Roberto Suro, Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and School of Policy, Planning and Development and Director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, University of Southern California
• Kathy Doan, Executive Director, Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition
• Sarah Launius, Co-Founder and Anti-Deportation Team Leader, Keep Tucson Together
• Apolonio Morales, Political Director, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights
• Edwin Robinson, Managing Director, Faith in Texas
• Jessica Shulruff Schneider, Director of Detention and Refugee Programs, Americans for Immigrant Justice

12:45PM – 1:35PM
LUNCH
Emilie Slohm Room, 6^th Floor

1:35PM – 2:35PM
BREAKOUT SESSIONS AND GROUP REPORTING

Event participants will break out into small groups by geographic communities and particular service/organizing sectors to discuss “whole-of-community” responses and takeaways from the earlier panels, including best practices, successful models, priorities, needs and next steps in community responses.

Assigned rooms listed below:

RED GROUP
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor
Moderator: Clete Kiley, Special Advisor to Archbishop Blase Cupich, Archdiocese of Chicago and Director for Immigration Policy, UNITE HERE

YELLOW GROUP
Classroom 314, 3rd Floor
Moderator: Tess Thorman, Research Associate, Public Policy Institute of California

GREEN GROUP
Classroom 316, 3rd Floor
Moderator: Kevin Appleby, Senior Director of International Migration Policy, Center for Migration Studies

BLUE GROUP
Classroom 317, 3rd Floor
Moderator: Vinh Ho, Director of the Immigration Initiative and Managing Attorney for the Civil Practice Clinics, South Texas College of Law Houston

2:35PM – 3:45PM | 1.25 Hrs Texas CLE Credit
SEE YOU IN COURT: HOW RESPONSES TO FEDERAL LITIGATION CAN HELP BUILD A STRONGER AND MORE INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

This panel will address federal litigation as a prompt for unifying strategies. It will cover legal challenges to the Trump administration’s Executive orders, to immigration enforcement practices, and in individual removal cases. It will also address how communities can prepare for, assist in, and utilize litigation as one potential tool in an effective community response to anti-immigrant legislation and practices.

• Moderator: Chris Rickerd, Policy Counsel in the National Political Advocacy Department, American Civil Liberties Union
• Andrew Free, Founder and Managing Attorney, Law Office of R. Andrew Free
• Geoffrey Hoffman, Professor and Director of the Immigration Clinic, University of Houston Law Center
• Esther Sung, Staff Attorney, National Immigration Law Center

3:45PM – 4:00 PM
BREAK
Joe Green Auditorium Lobby, 4th Floor

4:00PM – 5:15PM | 1.25 Hrs Texas CLE Credit
DETENTION AND DEPORTATION DEFENSE
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

This panel will cover the defense of persons in detention and in removal proceedings. Panelists will discuss how organized communities can assert and defend their rights, how to establish coordinated removal defense projects, and whole-of-community responses to the threat of removal.

• Moderator: Rosemary Vega, Supervising Clinical Attorney of the Immigration Clinic, University of Houston Law Center
• Vanessa Esparza-López, Managing Attorney, National Immigrant Justice Center
• Bob Libal, Executive Director, Grassroots Leadership
• Randolph P. McGrorty, Executive Director, Catholic Legal Services, Archdiocese of Miami
• Patricia Ortiz, Program Director, Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project

5:15PM – 6:00PM
BREAK AND EVENING REFRESHMENTS
Joe Green Auditorium Lobby, 4th Floor

6:00PM – 8:00PM
“BEYOND THE WALL”: SPECIAL SCREENING AND COMMUNITY DISCUSSION OF DOCUMENTARY FILM
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

Get past the rhetoric and experience the reality of the Texas border with a special screening of The Texas Tribune’s short documentary, “Beyond the Wall.” The film puts viewers into the shoes of undocumented immigrants, border patrol agents and a borderland rancher to explore the state’s most pressing immigration issues. It is part of the Tribune’s yearlong Bordering on Insecurity project. Following the screening, the Tribune’s Jay Root will moderate an expert panel discussion exploring the issues and solutions.

• Moderator: Jay Root, Reporter, The Texas Tribune
• Chief Art Acevedo, Houston Police Department
• Julián Aguilar, Reporter, The Texas Tribune
• Sarah Howell, Social Worker, Las Americas Newcomer School
• Stan Marek, President and CEO, Marek Construction
• Karla Quetzalli Perez, Board Member, United We Dream

South Texas College of Law Houston
1303 San Jacinto Street
Houston, TX 77002

8:00AM
REGISTRATION OPENS
Joe Green Auditorium Lobby, 4th Floor

8:30AM – 9:30AM
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

INTRODUCTION
Wafa Abdin
Vice President of Immigration and Refugee Services
Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance of Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston

KEYNOTE
His Eminence Daniel Cardinal DiNardo
Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston
President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

INTRODUCTION
Vinh Ho
Director of the Immigration Initiative
Managing Attorney for the Civil Practice Clinics
South Texas College of Law Houston

KEYNOTE
Stephen Klineberg
Professor of Sociology
Founding Director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research
Rice University

9:30AM – 10:45AM | 1.25 Hrs Texas CLE Credit
PROMOTING ACCESS TO ASYLUM IN THE FACE OF DETENTION, EXPEDITED REMOVAL AND OTHER BARRIERS
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

The expansion of detention, border enforcement, expedited removal, and other practices seek to prevent, deter and interfere with the right of migrants to seek political asylum. These practices exacerbate challenges related to a shortage of legal representation for asylum seekers. This panel will address efforts to promote and expand access to the US political asylum system in the face of these challenges. It will also discuss challenges to the US refugee resettlement program in Texas.

• Moderator: Anne Chandler, Executive Director, Tahirih Justice Center Houston
• Manoj Govindaiah, Director of Family Detention Services, RAICES
• Clara Long, Researcher, US Programs, Human Rights Watch
• Nicole Ramos, Project Director, Border Rights Project of Al Otro Lado
• Steven H. Shulman, Partner, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP

10:45AM – 12:00PM
BREAKOUT SESSIONS AND GROUP REPORTING

Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor: Providing client-focused services in this changing immigration environment, focusing specifically on issues affecting immigrant clients with physical and mental incapacities
Francisco (Pancho) Argüelles, Executive Director, Living Hope Wheelchair Association

Classroom 314, 3rd Floor: Expanding legal capacity using DOJ accredited representatives and recognized organizations.
Douglas Interiano, CEO and Director of Immigration Legal Services Program, Proyecto Immigrante ICS, Inc.
Aly Arnold, Citizenship Manager, Chinese Community Center

Classroom 316, 3rd Floor: Organizing the faith community to respond to changing immigration policies
Willie Bennet, Organizer, Gulf Coast Leadership Council – The Metropolitan Organization (TMO)

Classroom 317, 3rd Floor: The effective use of the media in advocacy and whole of community responses to immigrant needs and challenges.
Lomi Kriel, Reporter, Houston Chronicle
Frida Villalobos, Director of Communications, BakerRipley (formerly Neighborhood Centers Inc.)

Classroom 413, 4th Floor: Mobilizing Community in Small Cities and Rural Areas
Nicole Cortes, Migrant & Immigrant Community Action Project

Classroom 416, 4th Floor: San Antonio-Austin Networking
Terry Burton, IWC San Antonio

12:00PM – 1:30PM
LUNCH
Joe Green Auditorium Lobby, 4th Floor

12:15PM – 1:15PM
PRESS EVENT: CHANGING IMMIGRATION POLICIES IN TEXAS AND NATIONWIDE
Holiday Inn Houston Downtown
Savoy Room
1616 Main St. Houston, TX 77002 

• Moderator: Roberto Suro, Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and School of Policy, Planning and Development and Director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, University of Southern California
• Adonias Arevalo-Melara, Organizer, United We Dream
• Jeanne Atkinson, Executive Director, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
• Sarah Launius, Co-Founder and Anti-Deportation Team Leader, Keep Tucson Together
• John Ogletree, Pastor, First Metropolitan Church
• Rebecca White, President and CEO, Houston Area Women’s Center

1:30PM – 2:45PM | 1.25 Hrs Texas CLE Credit
PLAYING TO WIN OVER THE SHORT- AND LONG-TERM
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

This panel will highlight successful models of collaboration to defeat anti-immigrant legislation and to create momentum and winning partnerships for long-term reform. It will discuss the ingredients of successful past legislative campaigns; current state advocacy challenges (including passage of SB 4 in Texas); and likely legislative challenges in Congress in the upcoming months.

• Moderator: Kevin Appleby, Senior Director of International Migration Policy, Center for Migration Studies
• Ashley Feasley, Director of Policy, Migration and Refugee Services, US Conference of Catholic Bishops
• Oscar Hernandez, Lead Field Organizer, United We Dream
• Chris Newman, Legal Director and General Counsel, National Day Laborer Organizing Network
• Frances E. Valdez, Attorney, United We Dream
• Gislaine Williams, Grassroots Community Organizer, Refugee Council USA

2:45PM – 4:00PM | 1.25 Hrs Texas CLE Credit
LEGALIZING THE UNDOCUMENTED WITHOUT CONGRESS, THE EXECUTIVE, OR COURTS
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

A growing body of evidence shows that a substantial percentage of the US unauthorized population may be eligible for an immigration benefit or relief, but does not know it or cannot afford to pursue it. In addition, more than eight million lawful permanent residents are potentially eligible to naturalize, which (in many cases) will expedite legal status for their family members. These two facts mean that communities can and should pursue a large-scale “legalization” program now, without Congress, the Executive or the courts as a centerpiece of their response to new immigration challenges.

• Moderator:Jeanne Atkinson, Executive Director, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
• Matthew Burnett, Director, Immigration Advocates Network
• Astrid Dominguez, Policy Strategist, American Civil Liberties Union Texas
• Sara Feldman, Ready California Project Director, Immigrant Legal Resource Center
• Brian Schaeffer, Senior Program Director, YMCA International Services

4:00PM – 5:00PM
Joe Green Auditorium, 4th Floor

Plenary discussion on lessons learned and next steps in the response of diverse communities to federal, state and local challenges facing immigrants.

• Zenobia T. Lai, Program Director, Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance of Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston
• Kate Vickery, Executive Director, Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative

Wafa Abdin
Vice President of Immigration and Refugee Services
Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston

Wafa Abdin is the vice president of Immigration and Refugee Services, overseeing the Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance of Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston, the largest non-profit provider of immigration legal services for low-income and indigent non-citizens. She also supervises the Refugee Resettlement program which assists government approved refugees to become self-sufficient through cultural orientation, job development, family reunification and resettlement. Ms. Abdin has more than sixteen years’ experience in representing detained adults and juveniles, asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking and other serious crimes. She is a frequent lecturer at Immigration conferences and has written several articles and papers on Immigration law topics, including: Asylum, Special Registration, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and “U” Visas.  In recognition of her outstanding work and dedication, Ms. Abdin was awarded the Chrys Dougherty Legal Services Award in 2010 by the Texas State Bar.  She also received the University of Houston Law Center Public Interest Fellowship.

Art Acevedo
Chief
Houston Police Department

Art Acevedo began his tenure as the chief of the Houston Police Department in 2016. Chief Acevedo previously served as chief of the Austin (TX) Police Department from 2007 to 2016. Born in Cuba, he migrated to the United States with his family in 1968. He grew up in California and earned his Bachelor of Science degree, with honors, in Public Administration from the University of La Verne in California. Chief Acevedo began his career in law enforcement as field patrol officer in East Los Angeles with the California Highway Patrol in 1986. He was subsequently promoted through various positions of increasing responsibility to Chief, California Highway Patrol, in 2005. Chief Acevedo holds various leadership positions with the Major Cities Chiefs Association and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He is married to Tanya Born Acevedo and is the father of Melissa, Matthew, and Jake.

Julián Aguilar
Reporter
The Texas Tribune

Julián Aguilar reports on politics and border affairs from the Texas-Mexico border for the Texas Tribune. His focuses include immigration reform and enforcement, voter ID, international trade, border security, and the drug trade. His political coverage has included local, legislative and congressional races in Texas, as well as local and national elections in Mexico. Before joining the Tribune, Mr. Aguilar was a freelance writer for the Fort Worth Weekly; a government and crime reporter for the Laredo Morning Times; and a political writer for the Rio Grande Guardian. A native of El Paso, he has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Texas and a master’s degree in journalism from the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas.

Kevin Appleby
Senior Director of International Migration Policy
Center for Migration Studies

Kevin Appleby is the senior director of international migration policy for the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) and the Scalabrini International Migration Network (SIMN). Prior to joining CMS and SIMN, Mr. Appleby served as the director of migration policy and public affairs for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for more than 16 years. He has also worked as deputy director of the Maryland Catholic Conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Mr. Appleby has testified before Congress on immigration issues and represented the US Catholic bishops on these issues at public events and with the media. He is co-editor of the volume, On Strangers No Longer: Perspectives on the US-Mexican Catholic Bishop’s Pastoral Letter on Migration. Mr. Appleby worked for Senator Russell Long of Louisiana and select committees of the US Senate, including the Senate Select Committee on the Iran-Contra Affair. He received his BA from the University of Notre Dame, an MA in international affairs from George Washington University, and a law degree from the University of Maryland.

Jeanne Atkinson
Executive Director
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

Jeanne M. Atkinson is the executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC). Since joining CLINIC, Ms. Atkinson participated in a delegation to southern Mexico and Central America to examine the “push factors” that lead people from the region to migrate north. She also oversaw the development of the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Representation Project to provide volunteer legal representation and advocacy on behalf of mothers and children held in Dilley and Karnes City, Texas. Ms. Atkinson founded and co-chairs the Committee for Immigration Reform Implementation and speaks nationally on topics including family detention and implementation of immigration reform. Prior to joining CLINIC, Ms. Atkinson served as the director of Catholic Charities’ Immigration Legal Services program and the Refugee Center for the Archdiocese of Washington. She serves on the Board of Advisors of Catholics for Family Peace.

Anne Chandler
Executive Director
Tahirih Justice Center Houston

Anne Chandler is the executive director of Tahirih Justice Center’s Houston office. Tahirih Justice Center is a national nonprofit organization that protects courageous immigrant women and children who refuse to be victims of violence. Since Tahirih opened its doors in Houston in 2009, Ms. Chandler has provided the Houston office with strategic direction. She serves on the Houston Area Council on Human Trafficking and the Board of Houston’s Immigration Legal Services Collaborative. Prior to joining Tahirih in August of 2009, Ms. Chandler was a clinical professor for the University of Houston Law Center where she served as the interim director of the Immigration Law Clinic. Anne is a cum laude graduate of the University of Houston Law Center.

Michael Coon
Assistant Professor of Economics
The University of Tampa

Michael Coon is assistant professor of economics in the Sykes College of Business at the University of Tampa, where he teaches Principles of Microeconomics and International Trade & Finance. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. There, he taught a wide range of courses related to microeconomic theory, quantitative analysis, and international economics. Prof. Coon was profiled for the “Best of Hood” undergraduate faculty, and was the recipient of the 2015 Dr. Henry P. and Page Laughlin Faculty Professional Achievement Award. His primary research interests are in empirical microeconomics, particularly in the areas of economic development, the economics of migration and income remittances, and household labor decisions, with a focus on Latin American economies. Prof. Coon received his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his BA from American University in Washington, DC.

Matthew Burnett
Director
Immigration Advocates Network

Matthew Burnett is director of the Immigration Advocates Network (IAN), and served as its first full-time staff when it was formed in 2007. Prior to IAN, Mr. Burnett worked representing low-income immigrants at East Bay Sanctuary Covenant and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and served as a law clerk to Justice Z.M. Yacoob of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He received his BA cum laude from the University of Washington, where he was a Mary Gates Scholar and elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his JD cum laude from Seattle University School of Law, where he was a Public Interest Law Foundation fellow and on the editorial board of the Journal for Social Justice. Under his leadership IAN’s work has been recognized with multiple awards, including several Webby nominations and awards in the Law category and the American Bar Association’s 2014 James I. Keane Award for Excellence in eLawyering. In 2013, Mr. Burnett was named to the Fastcase 50, which honors the law’s “most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, & leaders.” He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.

H.E. Daniel Cardinal DiNardo
Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston

His Eminence Daniel Cardinal DiNardo is the metropolitan archbishop of Galveston-Houston and pastor to its 1.3 million Catholics (and over 4 million non-Catholics) and 440 priests in 146 parishes and 60 schools spread over 8,880 square miles. His seats are St. Mary Cathedral Basilica in Galveston and the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston.

Born in Steubenville, Ohio, and raised with three siblings in Castle Shannon near Pittsburgh, Cardinal DiNardo attended St. Anne grade school and the Jesuit-run Bishop’s Latin school before enrolling in St. Paul Seminary and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He received his master’s degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC and degrees of Sacred Theology from both the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Patristic Institute Augustinianum in Rome.

He was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Pittsburgh on July 16, 1977 and served as parish pastor, seminary professor, spiritual director, and in the chancery. From 1984 to 1991, he worked in Rome as a staff member for the Congregation for Bishops, as director of Villa Stritch (the house for American clergy), and as adjunct professor at the Pontifical North American College. In 1991 he returned to Pittsburgh, serving as pastor to several parishes and again in the chancery. He was appointed coadjutor bishop of Sioux City, Iowa and ordained there as a bishop in October 1997. As his Episcopal motto he adopted: Ave Crux Spes Unica, meaning “Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope.” He succeeded retiring Bishop Lawrence Donald Soens of Sioux City in November of 1998.

He was named coadjutor bishop (later coadjutor archbishop) of Galveston-Houston in January 2004 and succeeded Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza on February 28, 2006. On June 29, 2006, he received the pallium from Pope Benedict XVI. He was elevated to the College of Cardinals in November of 2007 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. As a member of the Sacred College, he served as a Cardinal-Elector in the Papal Conclave of 2013, which saw the election of Pope Francis to the See of Peter. In November of the same year, he was elected by his brother bishops as the Vice-President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for a three-year term. He is a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture, the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, the Pontifical Council for the Economy, and is on the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Kathryn M. Doan
Executive Director
CAIR Coalition

Kathryn M.  Doan, Esq., has served as CAIR Coalition’s executive director since 2008. During her tenure, the organization has expanded from a staff of six to a staff of 23 and added two new programs – The Detained Children’s Program and the Virginia Justice Program. Prior to joining CAIR Coalition, she was the Deputy Director of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) in Washington, DC, where she also managed the agency’s Immigration Legal Services and Community Support Services programs. At the 2015 D.C. Judicial and Bar Conference, Ms. Doan was named the recipient of the D.C. Bar Foundation’s Jerrold Scoutt Prize. The Prize is awarded annually to an attorney “who has worked for a significant portion of his or her career at a non-profit organization providing direct hands-on legal services to the needy in the District of Columbia; has demonstrated compassionate concern for his or her clients; and has exhibited a high degree of skill on their behalf.” A native of New York, Ms. Doan was graduated from Cornell University and Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law.

Vanessa Esparza-López
Managing Attorney, Immigrant Legal Defense Project
National Immigrant Justice Center

Vanessa Esparza-López is a managing attorney with the Immigrant Legal Defense Project of the National Immigrant Justice Center, where she represents individuals before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of State, and U.S. Department of Justice. Vanessa is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), where she currently serves on the Chicago AILA District Director Liaison committee and the Media committee. She obtained her J.D. from DePaul University College of Law in 2009 and her Bachelor of Arts with honors in International Studies from DePaul University in 2006. During law school, Vanessa was the cofounder of a new student group, the Society for Asylum & Immigration Law.

Ashley Feasley
Director of Policy, Migration and Refugee Services
US Conference of Catholic Bishops

Ashley Feasley is the director of policy for Migration and Refugee Services at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Prior to working at USCCB, Ms. Feasley worked as the director of advocacy for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC). She has taught at Fordham University School of Law and at the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America. Ms. Feasley focuses her work and scholarship on migration law including immigration law, human trafficking, refugee and asylum law, and protection of vulnerable mobile populations. She has published numerous articles and has appeared in the media speaking about migration-related issues. Ms. Feasley also previously clerked for the Honorable Evan J. Wallach at the United States Court of International Trade in New York.

Sara Feldman
Project Director of Ready California
Immigrant Legal Resource Center

Sara Feldman is the project director of Ready California, a cross-sector collaborative effort led by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) to support California institutions and organizations to get information and legal services out to immigrant community members so that they can prepare and respond to emerging opportunities and challenges. Ms. Feldman brings to Ready California significant experience serving and advocating for migrating populations in the United States and abroad. Previously, Ms. Feldman worked as a policy advisor with Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, where she conducted policy analysis and advocacy on behalf of refugees, human trafficking survivors, and unaccompanied children. Ms. Feldman holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Oregon, and a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Andrew Free
Founder and Managing Attorney
Law Office of R. Andrew Free

Andrew Free is the founder and managing attorney of a social justice legal startup based in Nashville, Tennessee. His team focuses on stopping deportations, attacking criminalization and mass incarceration for profit, and holding abusive bosses, government agencies, and officials accountable in federal court. As a movement-minded, client-centered advocate, Mr. Free provides strategic advice to organizers, allies, and affected communities in struggle throughout the Deep South and around the country. A significant portion of his firm’s practice involves recovering damages for US citizens who have been unlawfully detained or deported. Through creative and strategic use of the Freedom of Information Act litigation, the Federal Tort Claims Act, Section 1983, Title VII, Bivens litigation, the Fair Housing Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, Mr. Free has helped clients recover millions in damages, attorney’s fees, and other penalties from wrongdoers. He is a 2010 graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School, where he received the Bennett Douglas Bell Memorial Prize. More information about Mr. Free’s firm is available at www.resist.law.

Alissa Gomez
Executive Director
Houston Volunteer Lawyers

Alissa Rubin Gomez is the executive director of Houston Volunteer Lawyers, the pro bono arm of the Houston Bar Association. Prior to joining Houston Volunteer Lawyers in December 2011, Ms. Gomez was a commercial litigation partner in the Houston office of King & Spalding LLP – which she joined as an associate immediately after graduating as a chancellor from the University of Texas School of Law in 2002. Throughout her tenure at King & Spalding, she regularly took pro bono cases from Houston Volunteer Lawyers and Catholic Charities, and the Firm awarded her a pro bono service award in 2006, 2007, and 2008.  Ms. Gomez’s move to Houston Volunteer Lawyers was an extension of her dedication to providing legal services to persons in need.

Meghna Goswami
Program Officer
Houston Endowment

Meghna Goswami is a program officer at the Houston Endowment, where she oversees the foundation’s work on domestic violence, homelessness and immigration, among other emerging issue areas. Ms. Goswami has extensive experience in working with cross-sectoral collaboratives to address complex social problems. Prior to joining the Houston Endowment in 2010, she worked at Daya, an organization addressing gender based violence in the South Asian community in Houston. Her previous experience includes international development work specifically in the areas of social justice and gender equity. Ms. Goswami has an undergraduate degree in economics from Delhi University, India and a graduate degree in social work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India; she is a licensed social worker in the state of Texas.

Manoj Govindaiah
Director of Family Detention Services
RAICES

Manoj Govindaiah is director of family detention services with RAICES. Mr. Govindaiah graduated from the University of Illinois College of Law. He began his career at The Immigration Project in the St. Louis area where he primarily represented immigrants in family-based applications for immigration relief. Mr. Govindaiah later worked at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago where he represented detained children and non-detained immigrants in various immigration proceedings. Most recently, he was a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Miami office where he litigated class action civil rights cases in federal court, and did policy and advocacy work. Mr. Govindaiah is fluent in Spanish, and is admitted to the bar in Illinois, Florida, and Texas.

Andrea Guttin
Legal Director
Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative

Andrea Guttin is the legal director for the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative (HILSC). Ms. Guttin oversees HILSC’s legal initiatives, such as pro se asylum clinics, the Texas Immigrant Rights Hotline, preventing notario fraud, and advising the non-profit legal services providers who are members of the Collaborative. She previously worked as the interim managing attorney of Human Rights First’s Houston office, where she trained and mentored attorneys in the pro bono legal representation of indigent asylum seekers and children. Ms. Guttin also worked with detained asylum seekers and youth, and has represented or advised women and children held at the Karnes, Artesia, and Berks family detention centers in Texas, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, respectively. Before joining Human Rights First, she was a staff attorney at the Georgia Legal Services Program in Savannah, Georgia, where she represented Spanish-speaking clients in state and administrative courts. Ms. Guttin is the author of “The Criminal Alien Program: Immigration Enforcement in Travis County, Texas,” released by the Immigration Policy Center in February 2010. She received her JD with honors from the University of Texas School of Law in 2009. She also holds a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas. Ms. Guttin is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and is admitted to practice law in Texas, New York, and Georgia.

Vinh Ho
Director, Immigration Initiative
Managing Attorney, Civil Practice Clinics
South Texas College of Law Houston

Vinh Ho is the director of the Immigration Initiative and managing attorney for the Civil Practice Clinics at South Texas College of Law Houston (STCL). Prior to STCL, Mr. Ho began his legal career as a staff attorney for YMCA International Services before joining BPSOS-Houston, an affiliate of Boat People SOS (BPSOS), a non-profit organization in southwest Houston with a focus on serving the Vietnamese community. He rose to the position of executive director at BPSOS-Houston, where he was also the national legal services manager. At BPSOS-Houston and YMCA, he represented survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking victims, asylum seekers, family based petition cases, and family law matters. Mr. Ho received a dual JDA/MBA from Texas Tech University School of Law.

Geoffrey Hoffman
Professor and Director of the Immigration Clinic
University of Houston Law Center

Geoffrey Hoffman is the director of the University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic where he also teaches asylum law. He regularly supervises students representing families and children in their asylum cases, and has represented clients in appeals before the Fifth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits.

Sarah Howell
Social Worker
Las Americas Newcomer School

Sarah Howell is the school social worker at Las Americas Newcomer School in the Houston Independent School District. Ms. Howell has built her career working with immigrants and refugees and specializes in trauma and torture survivors within those populations. Additionally, she is passionate about educating others about trauma and trauma informed education. Ms. Howell completed her BA in International Politics and Diplomacy in 2007 at Texas A&M and her MSW at University of Houston in 2013. She will be completing her clinical license in 2017. Ms. Howell has traveled extensively to understand the clients she works with, including trips to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya to teach English and Guatemala to assist with therapy and support groups. Over the last three years she has traveled to Central America multiple times to visit the countries that unaccompanied minors are currently immigrating from. Ms. Howell most recently returned from a trip to San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

Donald Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

Donald M. Kerwin, Jr. is executive director of the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS). The organization is an 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 the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) between 1992 and 2008, serving as its executive director (ED) for 15 years and its interim ED for six months in late 2012 and early 2013. Upon his arrival at CLINIC in 1992, he coordinated CLINIC’s political asylum project for Haitians. CLINIC, a subsidiary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), is a public interest legal corporation that supports a national network of several hundred charitable legal programs for immigrants. Between 2008 and 2011, Mr. Kerwin served as vice president for programs at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), where he wrote on immigration, labor standards, and refugee policy issues. He has also served as: an associate fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center where he co-directed Woodstock’s Theology of Migration Project; a non-resident senior fellow at MPI; a member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Immigration Task Force; a board member for Jesuit Refugee Services-USA, the Capital Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, and the Border Network for Human Rights; an advisor to the USCCB’s Committee on Migration; and a member of numerous advisory groups. Mr. Kerwin writes and speaks extensively on immigration policy, refugee protection, access to justice, national security, and other issues.

Rev. Clete Kiley
Special Advisor to Archbishop Blase Cupich, Archdiocese of Chicago
Director for Immigration Policy, UNITE HERE

Reverend Clete Kiley is a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago. He has served as a diocesan administrator, seminary rector and pastor in a large immigrant parish. Fr. Kiley has also served on the staff of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and was president of the Faith and Politics Institute in Washington, DC. Currently, he serves as a special advisor to Archbishop Blase Cupich for a range of concerns including immigration. Fr. Kiley is also the director for immigration policy for UNITE HERE, the hotel and restaurant workers union, a largely immigrant union. He represents UNITE HERE on the International Labor Recruitment Working Group, a coalition investigating the abuse of J-1 and H2B visas and other issues of trafficking. Fr. Kiley serves on the AFL-CIO Immigration Committee, as well as participates on the Steering Committee for the Justice for Immigrants Initiative at the USCCB. He is also the chaplain of the Chicago Federation of Labor, and serves as a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America.

Stephen Klineberg
Professor of Sociology
Founding Director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research
Rice University

A graduate of Haverford College, Stephen Klineberg received an MA in Psychopathology from the University of Paris and a PhD in Social Psychology from Harvard. After teaching at Princeton, he joined Rice University’s Sociology Department in 1972. The recipient of twelve major teaching awards, including the George R. Brown Lifetime Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Piper Professor Award, he is a faculty associate and divisional advisor at Lovett College, where he twice served as Interim Master. His wife, Margaret, is a practicing attorney. They have two children and five grandchildren, three of whom are currently Rice undergraduates.

In March 1982, he and his students initiated the annual “Kinder Institute Houston Area Survey,” now in its 33rd year of tracking the remarkable changes in the demographic patterns, economic outlooks, experiences, and beliefs of Harris County residents. No other metropolitan region in America has been the focus of a long-term longitudinal research program of this scope. Houston recovered from the oil-boom collapse in the early 1980s to find itself squarely in the midst of the new restructured economy and an accelerating demographic revolution. No city more clearly exemplifies the transformations that are refashioning the social and political landscape across all of urban America.

The research has attracted great interest and generous support from foundations, corporations, and individuals in the wider Houston community and beyond. That support has made it possible not only to fund the annual surveys, but also to expand their reach with additional “oversample” interviews in Houston’s Anglo, African-American, and Latino communities, and to undertake more focused surveys on health, education, and the arts in the Houston area (the SHEA studies). In 1995, 2002, and 2011, the project reached large representative samples from Houston’s varied Asian communities as well, with one-fourth of the interviews conducted in Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, or Korean. Beginning with the 2012 study, the annual surveys are now reaching residents from the entire nine-county Houston metropolitan region.

Co-author of The Present of Things Future: Explorations of Time in Human Experience, Dr. Klineberg has written numerous articles and appears frequently on radio and television, and in the print and social media. A much sought-after speaker, he is completing a series of published reports (and soon, a book) on this ongoing research, while also serving as the founding director of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

Lomi Kriel
Reporter
Houston Chronicle

Lomi Kriel covers immigration for the Houston Chronicle. She previously was based in Central America for Reuters and covered criminal justice for the San Antonio Express-News. Ms. Kriel has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and is also an alumna of the University of Texas at Austin. She was born and raised in South Africa.

Zenobia T. Lai
Program and Legal Director
Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston

Zenobia T. Lai is the program and legal director at the Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. Prior to joining Catholic Charities, Ms. Lai has been a civil legal services lawyer for a quarter century, serving as executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center based in Washington DC, as senior training director of the Center for Legal Aid Education (now part of the Shriver Center), as managing attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services and as executive director of the Asian Law Caucus based in San Francisco. A 1991 graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, Ms. Lai has centered her career on making legal services available to those who lack the financial resources, political power, English proficiency or knowledge of the American legal system. She coined the term “community lawyering” whereby legal services leverage resources from private law firms and professionals of other disciplines to support the efforts of low-income communities to preserve affordable housing, gain a say in land use, advocate for environmental justice, immigrant rights and workers’ rights. Ms. Lai is a general practitioner in poverty law and she has developed extensive expertise in immigration law as well as family law. She is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts and Texas.

Sarah Launius
Co-Founder and Anti-Deportation Team Leader
Keep Tucson Together 

Sarah Launius is a co-founder of the Keep Tucson Together (KTT) immigration legal clinic, a community-based and volunteer-driven project which provides free representation to community members who are in removal proceedings as well as free assistance to those filing for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and naturalization. Founded in 2011, KTT has stopped over 200 deportations and has assisted over 1700 young people to receive DACA and over 800 people to naturalize. Ms. Launius volunteers as a team leader for the anti-deportation work of KTT and is a PhD Candidate and researcher at the University of Arizona.

Bob Libal
Executive Director
Grassroots Leadership

Bob Libal is executive director of Grassroots Leadership.  He has worked for more than a decade on issues of prison privatization, immigration detention, and criminal justice reform. Mr. Libal is regularly interviewed by national, regional, and local press on issues related to prison privatization, immigration detention, immigration enforcement policies, and the business of prisons. He has been interviewed for the New York Times, NPR, Business Week, Huffington Post, and numerous other local, state, and national media outlets.

Clara Long
Researcher, US Program
Human Rights Watch

Clara Long researches immigration and border policy with the US Program at Human Rights Watch. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Ms. Long was a Teaching Fellow with the Stanford Law School International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic. She has researched and advocated for human rights in Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, and the United States, including litigation in the Inter-American system. Ms. Long is the co-producer of an award-winning documentary, Border Stories, about perspectives on immigration enforcement from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. She has represented detained immigrants with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, and covered Venezuela as a freelance journalist. Ms. Long graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and holds Masters degrees from the London School of Economics in Environment and Development and from Stanford’s Graduate Program in Journalism. She speaks Spanish, French, and Portuguese.

Stan Marek
CEO
Marek Construction

Stan Marek is a Texas native and 1969 BBA of finance graduate of Texas A&M University.  In 1982, after spending a baker’s dozen years working in a progressive series of roles in the company, Mr. Marek became president and CEO of the Marek Family of Companies. In addition to leading one of the largest interior contractors in the Southwest with offices in Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Harlingen, Atlanta and Oklahoma City, Mr. Marek has been focused on workforce development, sustainability and comprehensive immigration reform.  He is the co-founder of Texans for Sensible Immigration Policy and a member of the Greater Houston Partnership’s task force, Americans for Immigration Reform. Mr. Marek is a community leader in Houston where he serves on the board of the Greater Houston Partnership, is a member of the World President’s Organization, a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum, a member of the Board of the University of St. Thomas, and is a board member of Catholic Charities and Neighborhood Centers. He has served in leadership positions in major construction industry organizations and has led key community organizations.

Randolph P. McGrorty
Executive Director
Catholic Legal Services, Archdiocese of Miami

Randolph P. McGrorty serves as the executive director of Catholic Legal Services, Archdiocese of Miami (CLS). He has served as the director since the inception of the agency. In that capacity, he supervises a staff of 45, including 22 staff attorneys. Almost three thousand individuals seek the services of CLS each month: individuals seeking to reunite with their families; political and religious refugees seeking safety and security, many of whom have experienced persecution and torture; battered spouses and their children; and long-term residents of the U.S. with significant family and community ties who face deportation. Of particular note, CLS maintains a strong relationship with South Florida’s Haitian Community, a traditionally under-served population. The agency is one of the largest providers of immigration services to the Haitian migrant community in the country. For the past year, CLS has spearheaded the effort to ensure legal representation for unaccompanied minors in removal proceedings. Mr. McGrorty received his BA from Harvard University, magna cum laude, and his JD, as well as his MSSW, from the University of Wisconsin. He is a frequent speaker on asylum, Cuban/Haitian Entrant issues, and immigration law. He is the recipient of the Adalsinda Lomangino Award for outstanding contributions to the field of immigration law, the Saint Vincent DePaul Award from the Archdiocese of Miami “in recognition of…faithful and compassionate service to those who seek sanctuary, shelter and security in a new land” and the Community Advocacy Award presented by Legal Aid of Broward County, Inc. He has received proclamations from both the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County recognizing his work on behalf of the immigrant and refugee communities of South Florida.

Apolonio (Polo) Morales
Political Director
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA)

Apolonio (Polo) Morales is proud to serve the immigrant community as the political director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). He attended the University of California at Berkeley and graduated with an English degree and an Education minor. After college, Mr. Morales learned labor organizing while working for the California Nurses Association/United Steel Workers’ Healthcare Workers Alliance. His labor experience taught him the value and power of a unionized workforce. For the past 10 years, he has dedicated his life to advancing pro-immigrant policies. He is the former PICO National Network Immigration Lead Organizer where he helped to strengthen immigrant organizing across various faith institutions with the Campaign for Citizenship. He is the father of two energetic happy boys and shares his life with a kind, loving wife.

Mary Moreno
Communications Director
Texas Organizing Project

Mary Moreno is the communications director for the Texas Organizing Project (TOP). She has also lead strategy for TOP’s immigrant rights campaign. Ms. Moreno has more than 10 years’ experience with community organizations, and prior to that worked for newspapers for seven years on the police beat.

Chris Newman
Legal Director and General Counsel
National Day Laborer Organizing Network

Chris Newman is the legal director and general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) based in its Los Angeles office. Mr. Newman has worked with day laborers since 2002, and was hired as NDLON’s first attorney in 2004. Since then, he has helped develop and coordinate NDLON’s work to defend and advance day laborers’ civil, workplace, and human rights. He was counsel on a coalition lawsuit challenging Arizona’s SB 1070 in federal court. Before working at NDLON, Mr. Newman was the founding coordinator of the Wage Clinic and Legal Program at El Centro Humanitario para los Trabajadores, a day laborer work center in Denver, CO. He is the recipient of an Academy of Educational Development New Voices Fellowship. He is currently a Transatlantic Forum on Migration and Integration fellow at the German Marshall Fund. Mr. Newman earned his JD with honors from the University of Denver College of Law.

John D. Ogletree, Jr.
Pastor
First Metropolitan Church

Pastor John D. Ogletree, Jr. is a native of Dallas, Texas. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1973 and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas in 1979. He accepted the call into the gospel ministry in 1982. In 1985, he was ordained at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. He became the founding pastor of First Metropolitan Baptist Church in 1986.  Pastor Ogletree provided leadership in the purchase of 25.2 acres of land along Beltway 8 in Northwest Houston.  He is a Trustee and serves as president on the Cy-Fair-Independent School District Board. Pastor Ogletree currently serves as 2nd Vice President of the Executive Board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT).

Patricia Ortiz
Program Director
Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project

Patricia Ortiz has been with Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project since 2013. As director of Esperanza, her focus has been on expanding the organization’s services to assist all individuals in deportation proceedings. During her time as director, Esperanza has introduced two new programs to provide both representation and pro se assistance to Respondents at the Los Angeles immigration court. Prior to working at Esperanza, Ms. Ortiz worked as a private immigration attorney focused primarily on detained adults. She is a graduate of Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Karla Quetzalli Perez
Board Member
United We Dream

Karla Quetzalli Perez was born in Mexico City and immigrated to Houston with her parents when she was two years old.  Ms. Quetzalli Perez is a 2015 graduate of the Bauer College of Business and the Honors College at the University of Houston (UH). She is a third-year law student at the University of Houston Law Center (UHLC) and will be the first person in her family to pursue a graduate degree. Ms. Quetzalli Perez has worked on immigration issues throughout her college career by becoming an intern at the UHLC’s Immigration Clinic, organizing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Clinics on campus, and mentoring undocumented youth in Houston. At UH, she was the President of the Youth Empowerment Alliance (an organization for undocumented students) and Chairperson of the Mexican American Studies Student Organization.

During the 84th Texas Legislature, Ms. Quetzalli Perez was the statewide coordinator of the Texas Tuition Equity Campaign, which successfully protected in-state tuition and state financial for undocumented students in Texas. During her 2016 summer internship at Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), she was the Family Detention Clerk, and also worked on state immigration issues. Ms. Quetzalli Perez was the State Coordinator for United We Dream’s legislative campaign, UndocuTexas, during the 2017 legislative session and she serves as a board member of United We Dream.

Nicole Ramos
Project Director
Border Rights Project of Al Otro Lado

Nicole Ramos is the project director for the Border Rights Project of Al Otro Lado. She works with asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexico, who wish to present themselves to US officials at the San Ysidro port-of-entry. Ms. Ramos conducts know-your-rights education in Tijuana shelters, and works with asylum seekers to evaluate their cases and prepare for the credible fear interview. The project provides accompaniment to the port-of-entry to ensure that asylum seekers are not denied access to the legal process by US border officials, and represents asylum seekers at the credible fear interview, and while in detention. The project also engages in policy advocacy, compiling statistics of asylum seeker turn-backs in Tijuana, taking declarations of asylum seekers who have been turned away, and providing this data to human rights and policy advocacy organizations, legislators, as well as media.

In her spare time, Ms. Ramos provides pro bono representation to deported persons seeking immigration relief through the U-visa and Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) programs, and provides technical assistance, country conditions research, and expert declarations to attorneys with case needs in Mexico, as well as serves as a mitigation consultant in cases where there is a history of trauma and mental health issues.

Prior to joining Al Otro Lado, Ms. Ramos was a federal public defender for the Federal Defender Program in Montgomery, Alabama, where she represented clients charged with federal felony offenses, and death row inmates challenging their convictions and sentences in federal habeas proceedings. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law.

Chris Rickerd
Policy Counsel, National Political Advocacy Department
American Civil Liberties Union

Chris Rickerd is a policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU’s) National Political Advocacy Department who does administrative and legislative advocacy on border and immigration issues. Prior to joining the ACLU, Mr. Rickerd spent seven years at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco as a law clerk and staff attorney and then worked for the Miami law firm of Kurzban Kurzban Weinger Tetzeli and Pratt.

Rev. Edwin Robinson
Managing Director
Faith in Texas

Rev. Edwin Robinson is the managing director for Faith in Texas, a movement of Lone Star faith communities for racial and economic justice. In his role, he is the strategic director for most of the issue campaigns for Faith in Texas along with leading congregational development and clergy organizing. He holds a Masters degree from Duke University and a Bachelors from Mary Hardin-Baylor. Rev. Robinson is a US Army veteran who served two tours of duty in Iraq. Before joining Faith in Texas, he was an associate pastor at Concord Church in Dallas.

Jay Root
Reporter
The Texas Tribune

Jay Root is a native of Liberty. He never knew any reporters growing up, and he has never taken a journalism class in his life. But somehow he got hooked on the news business. It all started when Mr. Root walked into the offices of The Daily Texan, his college newspaper, during his last year at the University of Texas in 1987. He couldn’t resist the draw: it was the biggest collection of misfits ever assembled. After graduating, he took a job at a Houston chemical company and soon realized it wasn’t for him. Mr. Root applied for an unpaid internship at the Houston Post in 1990, and it turned into a full-time job that same year. He has been a reporter ever since. Mr. Root has covered natural disasters, live music and Texas politics — not necessarily in that order. He was Austin bureau chief of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for a dozen years, most of them good. He also covered politics and the Legislature for The Associated Press before joining the staff of the Texas Tribune.

Emily Ryo
Associate Professor of Law and Sociology
University of Southern California Gould School of Law

Emily Ryo is an associate professor of law and sociology at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. She received a JD from Harvard Law School and a PhD in sociology from Stanford University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and practiced law at the international law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen, and Hamilton. Her current research focuses on immigration law, criminal law, legal noncompliance, and legal attitudes of noncitizens. She has published widely in both leading sociology and law journals, including the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Law & Social Inquiry, Law & Society Review, UCLA Law Review, and Southern California Law Review. She has been awarded the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship that will support her empirical work on immigration detention.

Dora B. Schriro
Commissioner, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and State Homeland Security Advisor
State of Connecticut

Dora B. Schriro is commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection of the State of Connecticut and the state’s homeland security advisor. She previously served as the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction under Mayor Mike Bloomberg, as well as Special Advisor to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and was the first Director of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 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. Commissioner Schriro previously served as 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. She is the only correctional administrator in the country to have led four correctional systems, two state and two city departments of corrections. She has taught graduate criminal justice and Correction law classes throughout her career and publishes in the areas of correctional and immigration innovations and systems reform. Commissioner 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. She currently serves as a commissioner on the boards of the Women’s Refugee Commission and the ABA Commission on Immigration. She is a graduate of Northeastern University (BA cum laude), University of Massachusetts-Boston (MS), Columbia University (EdD), and St. Louis University (JD).

Jessica Shulruff Schneider
Director of Detention and Refugee Programs
Americans for Immigrant Justice

Jessica Shulruff Schneider, Esq. is the Director of the Detention and Refugee Programs at Americans for Immigrant Justice in Miami, FL.  Ms. Shulruff Schneider supervises a team of attorneys and BIA accredited representatives who represent both detained and non-detained immigrants before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Executive Office of Immigration Review and the Board of Immigration Appeals. Ms. Shulruff Schneider has particular expertise in representing detained immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking. She speaks at conferences regarding immigration laws and procedures, and regularly provides training and technical assistance to other attorneys. Ms. Shulruff Schneider engages with national advocacy organizations in an effort to advocate for improving detention conditions and an end to immigration detention and is a Steering Committee member of the Detention Watch Network. Before working at AI Justice, Ms. Shulruff Schneider worked at Catholic Charities Legal Services of Miami where she provided representation to low-income immigrants and helped spearhead the Legal Orientation Program for Custodians of Unaccompanied Alien Children (LOPC) in South Florida. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, Ms. Shulruff Schneider received a Juris Doctorate and Masters of Art in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Florida and is a member of the Florida Bar.

Esther Sung
Staff Attorney
National Immigration Law Center

Esther Sung is a staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. Before coming to NILC, she worked for Munger Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles for 6 years. She has clerked for the Honorable Allyson K. Duncan of the US Court of Appeal for the Fourth Circuit and for the Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal of the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Roberto Suro
Professor, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and School of Policy, Planning and Development and Director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute
University of Southern California

Roberto Suro holds a joint appointment as a professor in the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California (USC). He is also director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, an interdisciplinary university research center exploring the challenges and opportunities of demographic diversity in the 21st century global city. Prof. Suro’s latest book is Writing Immigration: Scholars and Journalists in Dialogue (U of CA Press, 2011) co-edited with Marcelo Suarez-Orozco and Vivian Louie.

Prior to joining the USC faculty in August 2007, he was director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington DC which he founded in 2001. During nearly 30 years as a print journalist, Prof. Suro worked as foreign and domestic bureau chief for The New York Times and at The Washington Post as deputy national editor and as a staff writer on the national desk. He is the author of several books and several dozen book chapters, research reports and other publications related to Latinos and immigration. He regularly publishes commentaries with The New York Times and other national publications.

Tess Thorman
Research Associate
Public Policy Institute of California

Tess Thorman is a research associate at the Public Policy Institute of California, where she focuses on poverty and social safety net programs as a member of the Health and Human Services team. Her research interests include community health, immigration, and social and economic equity. Before joining PPIC, she worked with the Center for Migration Studies of New York to assess capacity for implementing a large-scale legalization program for undocumented immigrants. She holds an MPP from the University of Southern California and a BA with majors in English and musical studies from Oberlin College.

Alex Triantaphyllis
Director of Immigration & Economic Opportunity
BakerRipley (formerly Neighborhood Centers Inc.)

Alex Triantaphyllis is director of Immigration and Economic Opportunity at BakerRipley (formerly Neighborhood Centers Inc.). He is also the founder of PAIR: Partnership for the Advancement & Immersion of Refugees. Mr. Triantaphyllis recently helped lead the Welcoming Houston initiative and is the former Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative and served on Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s Economic Opportunity transition committee. Mr. Triantaphyllis is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and he graduated from Rice University with a BA in political science and Hispanic studies.

Frances E. Valdez
Texas Director
United We Dream

Frances E. Valdez is a native Houstonian with a wide range of immigration law experience from removal defense, family and employment immigration to developing and managing community legal service programs. She is a graduate of The University of Texas School of Law and began her career in 2005 as a clinical fellow with the UT Immigration Clinic. In 2008, Ms. Valdez formed FValdezLaw PC, a comprehensive immigration law practice in Houston, Texas. She worked as the immigration attorney at Neighborhood Centers Inc. from 2010 to 2014. She served on the board of United We Dream (UWD) from 2013 to 2016. Ms. Valdez supported UWD’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) work providing training and supervision to the Own the Dream Program. She currently works with United We Dream as the Texas Director.

Rosemary Vega
Clinical Supervising Attorney, Immigration Clinic
University of Houston Law Center

Rosemary Vega is a clinical supervising attorney with the University of Houston Law Center’s Immigration Clinic.  She also works in her private practice at Law Office of Rosemary Vega, PLLC. Previously, Prof. Vega was a partner at Tausk & Vega. She was also the sole staff attorney at YMCA International Services from 2003 to 2005. Straight out of law school, Prof. Vega was judicial law clerk for seven immigration judges at the Houston Immigration Court through the Department of Justice Honors Program from 2000-2001. Professor Vega received her BA from Austin College in Sherman, Texas in 1997. Thereafter, she attended St. Mary’s University Law School where she graduated in 2000. She began her interest in immigration law through the International Human Rights Clinic at St. Mary’s Law School and has been advocating for immigrants since then. Prof. Vega is the current American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Liaison for Houston. She is also active with the Houston Heights Rotary Club and other community organizations.

Kate Vickery
Executive Director
Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative

Kate Vickery is the executive director of the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative (HILSC). Ms. Vickery leads the overall strategic vision of the Collaborative, including facilitating meaningful collaboration among members, amplifying funding available to member organizations and leading grant-making processes, building strategic partnerships, and creating creative solutions to issues plaguing immigration legal services providers in Houston. She has a diverse professional background that includes leadership positions in the areas of immigration, criminal justice, community development, and environmental conservation. Before joining the Collaborative, Ms. Vickery was a planner in the City of Austin’s Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Community Garden Program and the Development and Communications Director at the Texas Land Conservancy. She holds a Masters of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs and a Master of Science in Community & Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. All of Ms. Vickery’s work centers around creating organizations and communities that are committed to justice and inclusion.

Rebecca White
President and CEO
Houston Area Women’s Center

Rebecca White joined the Houston Area Women’s Center in March 2008. She has more than 20 years of management experience in the nonprofit sector, most recently as senior vice president of Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, Inc. She has been involved in strategic planning and government relations for nonprofit organizations and is a member of Leadership Houston, United Way Leaders Circle, Women of Wine Charities and the University of Texas Parents Association. Ms. White graduated as a Senior Fellow of Class XXIX of the American Leadership Forum and was selected by Houston Woman Magazine as one of Houston’s 50 Most Influential Women of 2011. She currently serves on the Health and Human Services (HHSC) Allocations Committee and the Public Policy Committee for the Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV).

Gislaine Williams
Grassroots Community Organizer
Refugee Council USA

Based in Texas, Gislaine Williams is the grassroots community organizer for Refugee Council USA (RCUSA). Prior to joining RCUSA, Ms. Williams was the office manager for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrants’ Rights Project (IRP). Before joining IRP, she was a program manager for a refugee resettlement agency in Houston, Texas, providing social services to international refugees, asylees, and victims of trafficking.  She has participated in a number of grassroots campaigns related to immigrants’ rights, with a special focus on ending the practice of immigration detention. Ms. Williams serves on the Board of Directors of Grassroots Leadership, a nationwide advocacy organization dedicated to ending for-profit incarceration and reducing the reliance on criminalization and detention. She holds a Masters of Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in History from Rice University.

Carlos Zamora
Houston Coordinator
Mi Familia Vota

Carlos Zamora is a lawyer, notary, university professor, consultant, counsel, mediator, community and political leader Costa Rican, who lives in the city of Houston. For years, he has devoted himself passionately to the defense of rights, to educate people and to make changes that will transform society in which he lives. Today Mr. Zamora is Mi Familia Vota’s Houston Coordinator helping since his position to educate, promote civic engagement and political participation of people of the city of Houston. Since arriving in the United States, he has been dedicated to educating and defending immigrants and their rights. Mr. Zamora has given lectures on labor rights, human trafficking, the executive action of Barack Obama, and he promotes and teaches citizenship workshops.

Wafa Abdin
Vice President of Immigration and Refugee Services
Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance
Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston

Jeanne Atkinson
Executive Director
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

Anne Chandler
Executive Director
Tahirih Justice Center, Houston

Kathryn M. Doan
Executive Director
Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition

Vanessa Esparza-López
Supervising Attorney, Immigrant Legal Defense Project
National Immigrant Justice Center

Andrea Guttin
Legal Director
Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative

Vinh Ho
Director, Director of the Immigration Initiative and Managing Attorney for the Civil Practice Clinics
South Texas College of Law Houston

Geoffrey Hoffman
Director, Immigration Clinic
University of Houston Law Center

Donald Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

Jessica Shulruff Schneider
Supervising Attorney
Americans for Immigrant Justice

Roberto Suro
Professor, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and School of Policy, Planning and Development
Director, Tomás Rivera Policy Institute
University of Southern California

Fred Tsao
Senior Policy Counsel
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Frances Valdez
Texas Director
United We Dream

Laura Vasquez
Program Manager, Immigration Initiatives
National Council of La Raza

Rosemary Vega
Professor, Immigration Clinic
University of Houston Law Center

Kate Vickery
Executive Director
Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative