Felicia Escobar Carrillo
Chief of Staff, Office of the Director
USCIS
Felicia Escobar Carrillo was appointed as the chief of staff for USCIS on Jan. 28, 2021.
Prior to joining USCIS, Escobar Carrillo served as the Director of Immigration at The Beacon Fund since 2017. Previously, she was a consultant for the California Community Foundation helping to implement the Los Angeles Justice Fund.
From 2010 – 2017, Escobar Carrillo served in several positions in the White House Domestic Policy Council, including as special assistant to the president for immigration policy (2014 – 2017), senior policy director (2012 – 2014), and senior policy advisor (2010-2012). She also served in the US Senate as senior legislative assistant to US Senator Ken Salazar from 2004 to 2007 and associate director of the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee from 2003 to 2005.
Escobar Carrillo is a native of San Antonio, TX. In 2016, she received a Director’s Partnership Award from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. She has also received awards from the Latina Lawyers Bar Association of Los Angeles (2015) and UCLA La Raza Law Students Association (2015).
She received an undergraduate degree from Yale University, a master’s in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and her Juris Doctor from UCLA School of Law.
Donald M. Kerwin Jr.
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.
Kelly Ryan
Senior Advisor, Office of the Director
USCIS
Kelly Ryan is the Chair of the Interagency Working Group on Promotion of Naturalization and a Senior Advisor at USCIS. In October 2019, she returned to USCIS having concluded a 6-year international organization secondment as Coordinator of the Intergovernmental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (IGC.) She served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Immigration in the DHS Office of Policy from 2010-2013. From 2002-2009, she served a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. She developed U.S. government policies on refugee assistance, admissions, migration, and population issues. During her tenure at DOS, she led inter-agency efforts to reform the United States refugee admissions program. She was a lead U.S. negotiator of the UN Convention on The Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She was the lead U.S. negotiator of a bilateral treaty with the Government of Canada on a “safe third country” agreement. She has concluded agreements with the governments of the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. From 1992–2002, Ms. Ryan practiced law, most recently as the chief of the Refugee and Asylum Division of the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) Office of the General Counsel. She directed the division responsible for advising the agency and the Department of Justice on issues involving immigration law and international protection under the U.S. legal system.
Ms. Ryan has advised United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as a member of its advisory group of eminent persons. Ms. Ryan was appointed by President Obama, and confirmed by the United States Senate on March 29, 2012, to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Foundation.
Ms. Ryan received a B.A. in History and English cum laude from Tulane University, a J.D. from Georgetown University, and an LL.M with Honours from Cambridge University.
Robert Warren
Senior Visiting Fellow
Center for Migration Studies
Robert Warren served as a demographer for 34 years with the United States Census Bureau and the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Mr. Warren served as Director of the INS’s Statistics Division from 1986 to 1995. One of his accomplishments at INS was to project accurate ranges of the number of unauthorized immigrants that would apply in each state under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). During his service, he also worked for three years with the staff of the Panel on Immigration Statistics of the National Academy of Sciences, which published the report, “Immigration Statistics: A Story of Neglect” co-edited with Daniel B. Levine and Kenneth Hill (National Academy Press, 1985). Mr. Warren retired from INS in January 2002.
Mr. Warren released “Unauthorized Immigration to the United States: Annual Estimates and Components of Change, by State, 1990 to 2010,” with John Robert Warren in the International Migration Review, Vol. 47, No. 2, Summer 2013. His other signature publications include: “Annual Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States, by State: 1990 to 2000,” (Department of Homeland Security, 2003); “Estimates of the Undocumented Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: October 1996,” (INS, 1997); “Determinants of Unauthorized Migration to the United States,” with Linda S. Peterson (Center for International Research (CIR), US Bureau of the Census, 1990); and “A Count of the Uncountable: Estimates of Undocumented Aliens Counted in the 1980 United States Census,” with Jeffrey S. Passel, Demography, Vol. 24, No. 3, August 1987.
Mr. Warren has testified before Congress concerning the estimation of undocumented immigration and served as an expert witness for the Department of Justice on the issue of educating undocumented children. He was the US representative at United Nations meetings on immigration statistics in Geneva in May 1986 and February 1991, and an advisor to the US Commission on Agricultural Workers in 1992. For three years, Mr. Warren also played professional baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization. He holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Education from Indiana State University.
Charles Wheeler
Director of Training and Legal Support
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
Charles Wheeler directs the Training and Legal Support section for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) in Oakland. Mr. Wheeler is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland School of Law and has practiced and taught immigration law for four decades. Prior to working for CLINIC, Mr. Wheeler directed the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles. He has authored four books on various aspects of immigration law and is noted for his expertise in family-based immigration. He is a member of the state bars of California, Colorado, and Maryland.
