Eleanor Acer
Senior Director, Refugee Protection
Human Rights First

As the director of Human Rights First’s Refugee Protection program, Eleanor Acer oversees Human Rights First’s research and advocacy on issues relating to refugee protection, asylum, and migrants’ rights. Eleanor advocates, speaks and writes regularly on issues relating to the human rights of refugees and migrants, including legal representation, detention, US asylum law and policy, US global refugee protection and resettlement policies, and protection from xenophobic and bias-motivated violence. She works closely with Human Rights First’s pro bono legal representation team, conducts field research, has authored numerous reports and articles, and has testified before the US Congress.

Eleanor was awarded the Louis J. Lefkowitz Award for Public Service by Fordham University School of Law in 2007. She was selected by the American Bar Association to serve on its Commission on Immigration, and serves on the Advisory Board of the International Detention Coalition. She was also vice chair of the Refugee Council USA from 2006 to 2008. She has taught classes on refugee protection and migrants rights as an adjunct professor at the New School’s Graduate Program in International Affairs.

Before coming to Human Rights First, Eleanor was an associate handling federal litigation at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP. She has coordinated mentoring programs and has served on the International Human Rights Committee and Immigration Committee of the Association of the Bar of New York, as well as the Board of Advisors to the Crowley Program in International Human Rights at Fordham University School of Law. Eleanor received her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and her B.A. in History from Brown University.

Alexander Aleinikoff
Director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility
The New School

Professor T. Alexander Aleinikoff is University Professor and Director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School. Professor Aleinikoff has written widely in the areas of immigration and refugee law and policy, transnational law, citizenship, race, and constitutional law. His co-authored book with Leah Zamore The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime, will be published by Stanford University Press in 2019. He is the author of Semblances of Sovereignty: The Constitution, the State, and American Citizenship (Harvard University Press 2002), and the co-author of leading legal casebooks on immigration law and forced migration.

Prof. Aleinikoff served as United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees (2010-15) and was a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he also served as Dean and Executive Vice President of Georgetown University. He was co-chair of the Immigration Task Force for President Barack Obama’s transition team in 2008. From 1994 to 1997, he served as the general counsel, and then executive associate commissioner for programs, at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and taught at the University of Michigan Law School from 1981 to 1997 Prof. Aleinikoff received his J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Swarthmore College. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014.

Ashley B. Armstrong
Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering
New York University School of Law

Ashley Binetti Armstrong teaches the first-year Lawyering course at NYU Law, and leads a 1L reading group on barriers to asylum. Prior to joining the faculty, Armstrong led the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center as the Dash-Muse Teaching Fellow. In this role, she conceptualized and implemented Institute programming and conferences, directed the Human Rights Associates Program for first year students and co-taught the Human Rights Fact-Finding Practicum. Previously, Armstrong acted as Chief Operating Officer at the National Whistleblower Center where she facilitated the launch of the Global Wildlife Whistleblower Program and represented SEC, IRS, and qui tam whistleblowers. Armstrong also served as the inaugural Hillary Rodham Clinton Law Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS), and has volunteered with the UNHCR Global Learning Center in Budapest, Amnesty International, Human Rights First, and the Human Rights Foundation. Armstrong’s scholarship has been published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Georgetown Journal of International Law, and others. Her research analyzes human rights law in international, regional, and domestic settings. Armstrong’s most recent scholarship critically evaluates refugee rights and the concepts of non refoulement, safe third country, and responsibility-sharing as they relate to asylum seekers in Europe. Armstrong received her J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, with certificates in Transnational Legal Studies and Refugee and Humanitarian Emergencies. She also received her LL.M. in Advocacy with distinction from Georgetown Law. Armstrong graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University with a bachelor’s in government and concentration in international relations. She is admitted to practice law in the state of New York.

Pieter Bevelander
Professor in International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER)
Department of Global Political Studies and Director of Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM)
Associate Editor, International Migration Review

Pieter Bevelander is professor of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) in the Department of Global Political Studies and Director of Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM) at Malmö University, Sweden. His main research field is international migration and different aspects of immigrant integration as well the reactions of natives towards immigrants and minorities. His latest research contains the socioeconomic and political impacts of citizenship ascension of immigrants and minorities in host societies and the attitudes of the native population on immigrants and other minority groups. He holds a PhD in economic history from the University of Lund, Sweden.

Most Rev. Nicholas DiMarzio
Bishop of Brooklyn

The Most Reverend Nicholas DiMarzio is a Roman Catholic bishop who has led the Diocese of Brooklyn since October 2003. He has been a forceful voice on behalf of migrants and immigrants since his Ordination to the Priesthood in 1970. Bishop DiMarzio received a master’s degree in social work from Fordham University, and a doctorate in social work research and policy from Rutgers University. In 1976, Bishop DiMarzio was appointed refugee resettlement director and the director of the Office of Migration at Catholic Community Services for the Archdiocese of Newark. In 1985, he was appointed executive director of Migration and Refugee Services for the US Catholic Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington. He frequently testified on matters affecting migrants and immigrants before the committees of the US House of Representatives.

Pope John Paul II named him Prelate of Honor by in 1986, and in 1996 he was ordained a bishop. In 1999, Bishop DiMarzio was appointed Sixth Bishop of Camden. From 2003 to 2005, Bishop DiMarzio served as the US representative on the Global Commission on International Migration, a 19-member body sponsored by the United Nations. Bishop DiMarzio also serves as board chair for the Center for Migration Studies of New York and serves on the board of trustees for the Migration Policy Institute.

Elizabeth Ferris
Research Professor
Institute for the Study of International Migration, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University;
Formerly Senior Adviser, Office of the Global Summit on Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants, United Nations Office of the Secretary-General

Elizabeth Ferris is Research Professor at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown Law School.  From January-September 2016, she also served as Senior Advisor to the UN General Assembly’s Summit for Refugees and Migrants in New York.

From 2006-2015, she was a Senior Fellow and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement where she worked to support understanding and protection of internally displaced persons.  Prior to joining Brookings, she spent 20 years working in the field of humanitarian assistance, most recently in Geneva, Switzerland at the World Council of Churches.  She has also served as the director of the Church World Service’s Immigration and Refugee Program, as research director for the Life & Peace Institute in Uppsala, Sweden and as a Fulbright professor at the Universidad Autónoma de México.  Her teaching experience has included positions at Lafayette College, Miami University and Pembroke State University.  She has written extensively on refugee, migration and humanitarian issues, including The Politics of Protection: The Limits of Humanitarian Action (Brookings Institution Press, 2011), Consequences of Chaos: Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis and the Failure to Protect, with Kemal Kirsici (Brookings Institution Press, 2016).  Her latest book, Refugees, Migration and Global Governance: Negotiating the Global Compacts, with Katharine Donato, was published by Routledge in 2019.  She received her BA degree from Duke University and her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Florida.

Anna Marie Gallagher
Executive Director
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.  (CLINIC)

Anna Marie Gallagher became executive director of CLINIC in February 2019. She has practiced immigration and refugee law for more than three decades. Her experience includes teaching law at the University of Deusto in Spain and at Georgetown University Law Center, and co-founding human rights organizations in Europe and Guatemala.

Prior to joining CLINIC, Gallagher was a shareholder and head of the litigation practice area for Maggio + Kattar. Earlier, she worked as a consultant in Europe to organizations (including Jesuit Refugee Service) with a focus on policy planning and analysis, training and research on refugee and migration issues.

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

Karen Grisez is full-time Public Service Counsel in the Washington, DC office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. In that capacity, she supports the firm’s attorneys in a variety of subject matter areas, including social security disability, landlord/tenant, family law, veterans benefits, and other civil litigation. Since the mid-1990s, Ms. Grisez has increasingly concentrated her practice in immigration matters. She is former Chair of and current Special Advisor to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Commission on Immigration, is a member of the advisory board of the ABA’s Immigration Justice Project in San Diego, and is a former co-chair of the ABA Section of Litigation’s Immigration Litigation Committee. She is also a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, serves on its national Pro Bono Committee, and is a former trustee of the American Immigration Council. Ms. Grisez has been a volunteer case screener for the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) Pro Bono Project for over a decade. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and the Washington Council of Lawyers.‎

Ms. Grisez received her BA degree summa cum laude from the University of Maryland in 1987 and her JD from the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America in 1990. She has successfully represented numerous asylum applicants and other immigrants before US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the asylum offices, immigration judges, the BIA, and in federal court, and litigates a variety of other immigration matters. She also speaks frequently on asylum and other immigration-related topics.

Josiah Heyman
Professor of Anthropology
Director of Center for Interamerican and Border Studies
University of Texas, El Paso

Josiah Heyman is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the University of Texas at El Paso’s Center for Inter-American and Border Studies. He is the author and editor of five books and over 120 articles and chapters, concentrating on US border policies, officers, power relations, and human rights. A forthcoming co-edited book is Paper Trails: Migrants, Documents, and Legal Insecurity (Duke University Press, 2020). Working with the Center for Migration Studies, he recently published “Why Border Patrol Agents and CBP Officers Should Not Serve as Asylum Officers” and “Blockading Asylum Seekers at Ports of Entry at the US-Mexico Border Puts Them at Increased Risk of Exploitation, Violence, and Death.” He has made significant contributions to the Homeland Security Improvement Act and the antecedent legislation, was a key member of the Border and Immigration Task Force, a border region coalition that issued two important public policy reports, and was President of the board of directors of the Border Network for Human Rights.

Donald Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

Donald M. Kerwin, Jr. has directed the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) since September 2011. He 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, Mr. Kerwin 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 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.

John Thon Majok
Senior Program Analyst
Wilson Center

John Thon Majok is a Senior Program Analyst at the Global Risk and Resilience Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars where he is engaged in thoughtful analysis of budget and issues of global concern. Before he joined the Wilson Center in 2013, Majok was a contractor at the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs where he worked with the Fulbright and International Visitor Leadership Program alumni. From 2007 to 2009, he was a Program Officer at the Council of American Overseas Research Centers where he managed a study abroad portfolio of the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship Program. Before that, he coordinated the global recruitment of skilled South Sudanese diaspora professionals for the USAID’s Diaspora Skills Transfer Program at the Academy for Educational Development. In 2004, Majok was a congressional intern at the US House of Representatives.

A former refugee from South Sudan, Majok came to America in 2001 through the US Refugee Resettlement Program after 13 years of living in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. He graduated with honors from the University of Arizona in 2005 with a Bachelor’s of Science magna cum laude in Public Administration. He has a Master in Public Administration from George Mason University in Virginia. He frequently speaks and writes about forced migration issues including refugee resilience, refugee integration, refugees and diplomacy, refugees and national security, and protracted displacement.

Susan Martin
Donald G. Herzberg Professor Emeritus, School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University

Susan Martin is the Donald G. Herzberg Professor Emerita in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She previously served as the Director of Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of International Migration. She currently chairs the Thematic Working Group on Environmental Change and Migration at the World Bank. Before coming to Georgetown, Dr. Martin served as the Executive Director of the US Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by the late Barbara Jordan. She is the author and or editor of more than a dozen books. She is currently working on the second edition of her book, A Nation of Immigrants, updating the manuscript to assess developments in US immigration policy since its original publication in 2010.

Dr. Martin is a member of the World Refugee Council, serves on the Board of Directors of Jesuit Refugee Service USA and the Center for Migration Studies and is on the advisory boards of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the US Government Accountability Office.

Carmen Maquilon
Director Immigrant and Refugee Services
Catholic Charities Diocese of Rockville Centre

After joining Catholic Charities in 1990 Carmen received several promotions and in 2004 was named Director of Immigrant Services. During her tenure at Catholic Charities, Carmen has been responsible for directing legal and social services to the immigrant community of Long Island. Carmen has led a team of immigration attorneys, accredited representatives and resettlement case managers in providing legal representation and social services to individuals facing deportation, Dreamers looking for protection, refugees and asylees looking for a place to call home, victims of human trafficking, victims of domestic violence, and immigrant victims of crimes looking for safety and protection. Since 2004 Carmen has directed the efforts of Catholic Charities in assisting over 400 victims of human trafficking and their families with social services and legal immigration assistance.

Carmen has advocated for the legal rights and services for the thousands of unaccompanied minors that call Long Island home. She has directed the legal orientation program for custodians and for unaccompanied minors, which has resulted in a million dollar grant from New York State. Carmen has also provided presentations and trainings to many agencies including: the United Nations, Department of Justice, Police Academies, Caritas International, Caritas Argentina, Caritas El Salvador and Catholic Charities USA. Additionally, she collaborated with the creation and implementation of the Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force Strategy and Operations e-Guide.

Carmen is a board member of the New York Immigration Coalition and has served on the UNICEF Advisory Board for unaccompanied minors. Carmen is a fully accredited representative with the Board of Immigration Appeals. Carmen has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business and Management and Accounting from the State University of New York and a Certificate on Social Ministry from Fordham University and Catholic Charities USA.

Sarah Deardorff Miller
Adjunct Assistant Professor
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Sarah Miller is a senior fellow at Refugees International where she specializes in the politics of forced migration. Recently, she has consulted for UNHCR, the International Labour Organization, the World Bank, the International Rescue Committee, and Mercy Corps. She has worked on refugee issues with various NGOs in Tanzania, Thailand, Switzerland, and the United States, and has carried out research for consulting projects in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Nepal, Kenya, and Uganda. She has also helped with displacement-related projects at USAID and the US Department of State as a Franklin Fellow, and has consulted with think tanks including the Brookings Institution.

Sarah is currently an adjunct faculty at Fordham University and the University of London (SAS), and has published two books and various articles on forced migration. She received her doctorate in International Relations from Oxford University in 2014, and also holds an MSc in Forced Migration from Oxford University, an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a BA in History, Spanish, and International Service from Valparaiso University.

Michele Pistone
Non-Resident Fellow and Associate Editor, Journal on Migration and Human Security
Center for Migration Studies;
Professor of Law and Director of the Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services (CARES)
Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law

Michele R. Pistone is a professor of law at Villanova University Charles Widger 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, as well as 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 is currently developing a new online educational program at Villanova University, to train non-lawyer accredited representatives to represent immigrants before immigration courts and the Department of Homeland Security. The new program, called Villanova Interdisciplinary Immigration Studies Training for Advocates (VIISTA), will launch in 2020.

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 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), which she co-authored with JMHS associate 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.

Rick Towle
Director a.i.
UNHCR, New York

Richard Towle is the acting Director of UNHCR New York Office, having previously served as the UNHCR Representative in Malaysia and Regional Representative for Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific. He is a New Zealander who joined UNHCR in Hong Kong in the early 1990s, working in a variety of capacities dealing with the Vietnamese boat people, then moved to the London office of UNHCR. He has since held various senior legal roles in the Department of International Protection at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva and has been involved in the UNHCR development of polities and operations relating to human rights, internally displaced persons, and asylum-migration issues.

His other UN experience includes a role as Chief of Mission for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, from 2001 to 2003. Towle was also a Member of the New Zealand Refugee Status Appeal Authority during a temporary absence from UNHCR from 2005 – 2006. Prior to joining the UN, he was a Deputy Chair of the Hong Kong Refugee Status Review Board, after working as a partner in a New Zealand law firm specializing in refugee and human rights issues. 

Msgr. Robert J. Vitillo
Secretary General
International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC)

Msgr. Robert J. Vitillo completed graduate studies in theology, clinical social work, and management. He is a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey (USA). He served in Catholic Church-related charitable agencies at diocesan, national, and global levels. Between 2005 and 2016, he coordinated the Caritas Internationalis Delegation to the UN in Geneva and served as its Special Advisor on Health. In June 2016, he was appointed to serve as the Secretary General of the International Catholic Migration Commission, a global network of

Catholic Bishops Conferences engaged in responses to people on the move. ICMC also provides protection and humanitarian assistance to refugees and migrants in emergency situations, with 500 staff in 40 countries of the world, and convenes civil society in several major global, migration-related advocacy networks. In addition to his leadership at ICMC, Msgr. Vitillo serves as an Attaché for the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the UN in Geneva.

Jamie Winders
Editor, International Migration Review
Center for Migration Studies;
Professor and Chair, Department of Geography
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University

Dr. Jamie Winders is Professor of Geography in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. She is Editor-in-Chief of the International Migration Review journal. Dr. Winders specializes in cultural and social geography and international migration. She co-edited The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography and published Nashville in the New Millennium: Immigrant Settlement, Urban Transformation, and Social Belonging with Russell Sage in 2013. She holds a PhD from the University of Kentucky.

Wendy Young
President
Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)

Wendy has led Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) since 2009, and brings extensive immigration policy experience to the organization. Prior to KIND, she served as Chief Counsel on Immigration Policy in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees for Senator Edward M. Kennedy. She held prior immigration policy positions with organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Women’s Refugee Commission, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the National Council of La Raza. She has also written numerous articles, reports and cutting-edge op-eds on the plight of unaccompanied children.

Wendy has received a number of awards and honors for her work on immigration rights including: 2017 Williams College Bicentennial Medal Award; 2016 Keepers of the American Dream Honoree by the National Immigration Forum; Women Inspiring Change 2015 Honoree at Harvard Law School’s 2nd Annual International Women’s Day Celebration; Foreign Policy’s Leading Global Thinker of 2014; Nominated as one of two NGO representatives to participate in Seminar XXI Program on US Foreign Policy by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and National Defense University (2002); Honored by the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center for work on behalf of women and children detainees (2002); Child Advocacy National Certification of Recognition, American Bar Association, in recognition of contributions advancing the welfare of children (2001); Human Rights Award, American Immigration Lawyers Association, in recognition of the work of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children on behalf of women and child asylum seekers (1999).

Wendy earned a joint law degree and a master’s degree in international relations from American University in Washington, DC, and a bachelor’s degree from Williams College in Massachusetts.

Leah Zamore
Senior Policy Analyst, Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
New York University

Leah Zamore directs the Humanitarian Crises program at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC). She also co-directs an Experts Initiative on Global Refugee Policy and is the co-author of a forthcoming book (Stanford, 2019) on the evolution of the international refugee protection regime. Prior to her current position, Ms. Zamore taught international human rights law as a visiting professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas law school in São Paulo, Brazil; served as a special advisor to the federal Government in Brasilia on refugee and humanitarian issues; and, before that, worked as a policy advisor to the Deputy High Commissioner of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Geneva, Switzerland. In previous years, her human rights and humanitarian work has taken her to Ethiopia, northern Uganda, South Africa, France, Kosovo, and India. Ms. Zamore has a Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School, a Master’s degree from Oxford University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.