Our Staff:

Debbie Smith, Project Director
(dsmith@immigrationadvocates.org)
Debbie is an attorney with more than 20 years of experience in non-profit, private and public sector practice. Most recently, Debbie was a staff attorney at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. She was also a partner at the San Francisco immigration law firm, Simmons & Ungar, a staff attorney at International Institute of the East Bay, and the national coordinator of the landmark American Baptist Churches ("ABC") class action settlement.

Matthew Burnett, Project Coordinator
(mburnett@immigrationadvocates.org)
Before joining Immigration Advocates Network as the Project Coordinator at Pro Bono Net, Matthew assisted state and national legal aid organizations in implementing innovative and effective technology to help increase access to justice for low-income individuals as a LawHelp Circuit Rider. He has also worked representing asylum seekers 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. Prior to law school, Matthew worked in online marketing and web production in Seattle and San Francisco. He lives in New York City.

Our Partners:

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation's Immigrants' Rights Project
Vivek Malhotra, State Strategist
A leader in defending the core constitutional freedoms of non-citizens, the ACLUF Immigrants' Rights Project brings to the working group its connections to advocates across the United. In 1987 the ACLUF Immigrants' Rights Project was founded to expand the range, reach, and scope of the ACLU's civil rights and civil liberties work on behalf of non-citizens. The IRP maintains the largest litigation program in the U.S. dedicated to enforcing and preserving the constitutional rights of immigrants. Through the ACLU's network of affiliates and chapters throughout the country, IRP advocates for immigrants' rights at the national, state, and local level. The Immigrants' Rights Project also pursues a national public education campaign to educate the public on the rights of immigrants.

American Bar Association Commission on Immigration
Irena Lieberman, Director
The American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Immigration directs the ABA's efforts to ensure fair treatment and full due process rights for immigrants and refugees within the United States. The Commission advocates for statutory and regulatory modifications in law and governmental practice consistent with ABA policy; provides continuing education and timely information about trends, court decisions and pertinent developments for members of the legal community, judges, affected individuals and the public; and develops and assists the operation of pro bono programs that encourage volunteer lawyers to provide high quality, effective legal representation for individuals in immigration proceedings, with a special emphasis on the needs of the most vulnerable immigrant and refugee populations. Programs operated by the Commission include Volunteer Advocates for Immigrant Justice (VAIJ), the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR), the Immigration Justice Project (IJP) of San Diego, and the Detention Standards Implementation Initiative (DSII). Among the Commission's greatest concerns are the erosion of due process safeguards, the growing reliance on detention, and the lack of access to legal information and counsel for individuals in immigration proceedings, particularly unaccompanied immigrant children and asylum seekers. The ABA Board of Governors has designated immigration to be a legislative priority of the ABA in each Congress since 1992.

American Immigration Lawyers Association
Crystal Williams, Deputy Director of Programs
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) is the national association of more than 11,000 attorneys and law professors who practice and teach immigration law. Founded in 1945, AILA is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that provides its members with continuing legal education, information, and expertise through its 36 chapters and over 50 national committees. AILA is an Affiliated Organization of the American Bar Association and is represented in the ABA House of Delegates. AILA works with pro bono attorneys to represent low income and indigent immigrants before the agency and the federal courts nationwide.

American Immigration Law Foundation
Beth Werlin, Litigation Clearinghouse Attorney
The American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF) was established in 1987 as a tax-exempt, not-for-profit educational, charitable organization. The Foundation is dedicated to increasing public understanding of immigration law and policy and the value of immigration to American society, and to advancing fundamental fairness and due process under the law for immigrants. AILF works closely with leading immigration experts throughout the country and through its Legal Action Center conducts impact litigation.

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)
Don Kerwin, Executive Director; Charles Wheeler, Director of Training and Technical Support; Jack Holmgren, Legalization Attorney
CLINIC is a non-profit legal support organization incorporated in 1988 to serve the nation's most vulnerable immigrants, including refugees/asylum-seekers, detainees, families in need of reunification, laborers abused in the workplace, and survivors of violence. CLINIC directly represents at-risk immigrants and manages large-scale direct service programs. After a decade at the helm of the Immigration Management Project, CLINIC is widely regarded as a leader in creating and sustaining immigration legal services capacity. It primarily accomplishes its mission by providing comprehensive training, technical support, and advocacy services for community-based immigration agencies. Its network consists of 173 charitable immigration programs, which operate from more than 260 locations. CLINIC also provides legal and management support to more than 150 charitable agencies outside its formal network.

Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Eric Cohen, Executive Director; Angie Junck, Staff Attorney
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) is a national resource center that works to create a society that embraces diversity, respects the dignity and rights of all and values new Americans' contributions to society. The ILRC works to achieve these goals by empowering immigrants, undertaking educational and advocacy initiatives, and providing expert legal information, seminars and consultations on rapidly changing issues to lawyers, paralegals, leaders of community-based and immigrant-based groups and others. ILRC is a leader in developing resources for non-attorney and attorney activists relating to the practice of immigration law. The ILRC's programs are designed to help immigrants effectively engage in the democratic process and are organized in three interconnected areas: civic participation, policy and advocacy, and technical assistance. The ILRC publishes several uniquely practical manuals on immigration law including Defending Immigrants in the Ninth Circuit: Impact of Crimes under California and other State Laws, Naturalization and U.S. Citizenship: The Essential Legal Guide, Hardship in Immigration Law, The VAWA Manual, and other publications.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Annie Wilson, Executive Vice President
Since 1939, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) has brought new hope and new life to refugees and vulnerable immigrants through ministries of service and justice. Among its major programs, the organization resettles refugees, provides foster care and child welfare services to unaccompanied minors, and increases access to justice for asylum-seekers and immigrants in detention. LIRS supports national legal and social service networks with training, technical resources, and expert information. LIRS advocates for fundamental justice for the most vulnerable immigrants, and has made strong contributions to children's issues, detention reform, asylum policy, and legal rights education. LIRS engages constituents across the country to create welcoming communities. Since its founding, LIRS has given hundreds of thousands of people a new start in the United States.

National Immigration Law Center
Joan Friedland, Immigration Policy Director
Established in 1979, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is a national legal advocacy organization whose mission focuses exclusively on protecting and promoting the rights of low-income immigrants and their families. For the past 28 years, NILC has been widely recognized and trusted as a national leader and partner in the immigrant rights advocacy field, with a staff that has decades of experience in our core programmatic areas of immigration law and the employment and public benefit rights of low-income immigrants. NILC uses multiple, complementary strategies to carry out the organization's mission, including law reform and impact litigation, legal analysis and support to public interest advocates, policy research and analysis, trainings, and educational materials produced for a broad spectrum of audiences. In this way, NILC provides immigrant rights organizations a range of tools they can use to develop their capacity to help shape local, state, and federal policies affecting the lives of immigrants.

National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild
Dan Kesselbrenner, Executive Director
The National Immigration Project is a non-profit membership organization of lawyers, law students, legal workers and jailhouse lawyers working to defend and expand the rights of all immigrants in the U.S. The Project is especially committed to advocating for the most disenfranchised and vulnerable immigrants and provides information and technical assistance regarding numerous immigration issues. With more than 30 years of experience in the field and expertise in the immigration consequences of criminal convictions, issues affecting noncitizens with HIV, and the immigration provisions of the Violence Against Women Act, the Project's assistance is considered invaluable by many in the immigrants' rights field. The Project edits several valuable immigration reference books including Immigration Law and Defense, Immigration Law and Crimes, Immigration Law and the Family, U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Handbook and other important publications.

Pro Bono Net
Mark O'Brien, Executive Director
Pro Bono Net is a national nonprofit organization based in New York City that works to increase access to justice for the poor. Founded in 1998, the organization has grown from a unique experiment to a respected institution within the public interest legal community. Pro Bono Net works in close partnership with nonprofit legal organizations across the country to increase access to justice for the millions of poor people who face legal problems every year without help from a lawyer. PBN does this by (i) supporting the innovative and effective use of technology by the nonprofit legal sector, (ii) working to increase participation by volunteers, and (iii) facilitating collaborations among nonprofit legal organizations and advocates working on similar issues or in the same region.

The Advocates for Human Rights
Michele Garnett McKenzie, Refugee & Immigrant Program Director
The Advocates for Human Rights, formerly Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, is dedicated to the promotion and protection of internationally recognized human rights. With the help of over 800 volunteers, The Advocates for Human Rights documents human rights abuses, educates and advocates on human rights issues, and provides training and technical assistance to prevent human rights violations. As the leading center for asylum seekers in the Midwest, The Advocates for Human Rights provides brief and ongoing legal services in more than 1000 cases on behalf of asylum seekers, immigration detainees and immigrants each year.

Our Supporters:

Foundation Funders:
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Zellerbach Family Foundation
JEHT Foundation

In-kind Contributors:
Morrison & Foerster LLP