Immigration & the Chicago Migrant Crisis

Alejandra Palacios, Staff Attorney, International Human Rights Clinic, University of Illinois Chicago School of Law

Alejandra Palacios is a Staff Attorney for the International Human Rights Clinic. In her position, supervises law students on asylum cases, outreach, and immigrant-justice projects.

Before joining the International Human Rights Clinic, she was a Staff Attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) in Chicago, in the Children’s Protection Project. At NIJC, she provided direct representation and counseling to detained and non-detained unaccompanied immigrant children before U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services and the Chicago Immigration Court. Before working at NIJC, Alejandra was the Illinois Bar Foundation fellow with the International Human Rights Clinic where she worked on expanding the clinic’s asylum practice.

She holds a BA in Political Science and Psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a JD from UIC Law.

Amanda Crews Slezak – National Immigrant Justice Center

Amanda Crews Slezak is the managing attorney of NIJC’s in-house asylum team. She provides legal representation to noncitizens seeking asylum and other relief before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Immigration Court, and Board of Immigration Appeals. She was previously a supervising attorney with the Immigrant Children’s Protection Project at NIJC. Amanda graduated from Loyola University Chicago School of Law where she was a Civitas ChildLaw Fellow. Prior to law school, Amanda spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cape Verde working in education and community development. She received her Bachelor of Arts in international studies from Baylor University. Amanda is licensed to practice law in the state of Illinois.

Katherine Greenslade, Director, Immigrant Justice Legal Clinic at The Resurrection Project

Katherine Greenslade is the Director of the Immigrant Justice Legal Clinic at The Resurrection Project. Since joining TRP's team in December 2018, Katherine has expanded the asylum and removal defense practice and more than doubled the size of the legal team. As Director of the legal clinic, she provides leadership and mentorship to her team and is responsible for strategic planning and implementation of TRP's legal services. She has overseen the creation and implementation of new special projects including TRP's participation as a founding member of MIDA (Midwest Immigrant Defenders Alliance), a collaboration striving for universal representation of detained immigrants facing removal before the Chicago Immigration Court. She has built a team and coordinated TRP's legal services response to assist recently arrived immigrants to Chicago.

Previously, Katherine represented immigrant clients in private practice. At its inception, she served as the Coordinator for Northeastern Illinois University’s Undocumented Students Project, developing Ally training programs and advising on best policies and practices to serve the university's undocumented student population. She has successfully represented clients before U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS), Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) for 15 years. She is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), serving as co-chair of the Chicago chapter's Advocacy Committee and Legal Services for Detainees Committee. Katherine received her bachelor’s degree cum laude in History and Spanish from Tulane University and her Juris Doctor from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Nubia Willman, Chief Program Officer, Latinos Progresando

Nubia Willman is the Chief Programs Officer at a Chicago-based nonprofit, Latinos Progresando. Prior to this role, Nubia was Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot, the City of Chicago's 56th mayor. There, Nubia led city-wide community engagement and immigration policy for Chicago, including drafting a resettlement plan to receive the first phase of new arrivals.

Nubia is a licensed attorney. Previously, she represented survivors of gender-based violence and precarious workers at Legal Aid Chicago.

Nubia’s career includes ten years as a digital content creator, writer, and thought leader discussing professional development, gender equity, and racial justice. She is the founder Latinas Uprising, an online community for the modern Latina lawyer, reaching over 27,000 young professionals committed to social justice and increasing diversity within the legal profession.

She earned her JD from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Daniela Vélez-Clucas, Staff Attorney, Healthcare Justice/Immigration, Shriver Center on Poverty Law

Daniela Velez-Clucas is an attorney on the Health Justice Team at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. Daniela brings her immigration law background to advocate for comprehensive, affordable health coverage for all Illinoisans, regardless of immigration status, and focuses on issues at the intersection of immigration law and eligibility for public benefits. You can reach Daniela at danielavelezclucas@povertylaw.org. 

Sam Barth, Staff Attorney, Law Center for Better Housing

Sam Barth is a staff attorney at Law Center for Better Housing (formerly Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing), a legal aid non-profit in Chicago that helps renters with housing issues and represents tenants facing eviction. Sam currently heads LCBH's Affordable Housing and Preservation Project, and works with tenants, tenant unions, and community groups to address substandard housing conditions. Previously, Sam worked at First Peoples Worldwide, an Indigenous rights non-profit.

Alyssa Phillips, Education Attorney, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

Alyssa Phillips is an Education Attorney at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Alyssa advocates for families and students experiencing homelessness through direct representation, community education and policy advocacy. She was admitted to the Illinois Bar in November 2017. Ms. Phillips joined the Law Project in September 2017 as an Equal Justice Works fellow, focusing on educational rights for homeless children in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. Prior, she was a PILI (Public Interest Law Initiative) intern at The Law Project and an intern at the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. She received her undergraduate degree from Wheaton College and her juris doctor from University of Notre Dame Law School in 2017.

Kevin Herrera, Legal Director, Raise the Floor

Kevin Herrera is Legal Director at Raise the Floor Alliance, where he works in collaboration with organizers at seven worker centers to defend and advance the rights of communities working in low wage industries through litigation, policy advocacy, and popular education. His work focuses on ending the exploitation of workers and full access to civic life for immigrants while fighting surveillance, the carceral state, and deportation. Herrera previously worked at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, the National Immigration Law Center, and Just Futures Law.

Hena Mansori, Assistant Public Defender Supervisor, Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender

Hena Mansori oversees the Immigration Division at the Cook County Public Defender’s office. Since joining the PD’s office in 2020, Hena has trained PD staff on their obligations under Padilla v. Kentucky and provided case-specific assessments to assistant public defenders with noncitizen clients. She also oversees the office’s removal defense practice, through which the office represents noncitizens before the Chicago Immigration Court on a merits-blind model, and crimmigration community outreach and education. Prior to joining the PD’s office, Hena worked at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) for more than 12 years, most recently as the managing attorney of NIJC’s Adult Detention Project. Hena received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2002 and her J.D. from NYU School of Law in 2006. She is licensed to practice law in the state of Illinois and lives with her husband and two kids in Chicago.

Ana Suarez Baca, Bilingual Coordinator, Chicago Public Schools

Ana Suarez was born in Michoacan, Mexico and migrated with her family to the United States at a young age. She grew up in Chicago, and is a proud Chicago Public Schools graduate. She went on to continue her education at Northeastern Illinois University where she received a Bachelor's in Early Childhood Education with a minor in Bilingual/ESL education. Upon graduation, she was eager to return to CPS and currently works as a Bilingual Coordinator at a K-8 elementary school where she aims to ensure all English Learners and Newcomer students receive an equitable education. She is also concurrently pursuing a Master's in Educational Leadership and hopes to become a CPS Principal.

Martha Armenta-Robles, MSW, Associate Director of Immigration and Advocacy, Enlace

I was born and raised in Sinalola, Mexico. I migrated to the United States in July 2000 with my parents and older sisters. I had lived in Chicago for the last 23 years, in different neighborhoods but Little Village has always been home away from home. I decided to be a Social Worker to follow my passion in working in community and helping those in need. I obtained my Bachelor's and Master's in Social Work from Northeastern Illinois University. As a DACAmented student, college was an amazing and challenging journey. My passion in immigration rights and legal services stems from my own lived experiences as an undocumented individual in this country. It took me almost 23 years to obtain permanent legal status, and it was one of the hardest journeys in my life. I focus on immigration work because I want to be the person I needed when I was younger, I want to be there and really support families.

Yessenia Castro-Caballero, Attending Physician, Hospital Based Medicine, Lurie Children's Hospital

Yessenia Castro-Caballero is a pediatric hospitalist for Lurie’s at New Lenox. She graduated medical school from UIC and residency from formerly known Children’s Memorial Hospital. She practiced general pediatrics for six years in the southwest side of Chicago before becoming a hospitalist for the University of Chicago, Loyola and now Lurie’s. During her years in private practice she experienced first hand how changes in immigration policies affected her most vulnerable patients. A child from immigrant parents herself, she joined the Refugee and Immigrant Child Health Initiative of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2016, is on the steering committee of the Midwest Human Rights Consortium, started the Medical Forensic Program for Asylum Seekers at Loyola/MacNeal Hospital and now joined Lurie’s FAIR clinic (Forensic Assessment for Immigration Relief).

Candice Choo-Kang, Mutual Aid Volunteer, Research Program Coordinator, Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health

As a community organizer and a long time student of hard sciences, it was only natural that I would be drawn to a career in Public Health. I currently work at Loyola as a project coordinator for the Modeling the Epidemiologic Transition Study (METS), an international epidemiologic cohort study, and I was a founding member of the COVID Equity Response Collaborative - Loyola (CERCL), which provided COVID testing in West Cook County suburbs early in the pandemic. Working at Loyola has allowed me to pursue my passion for reducing health disparities. Correspondingly, I spend my free time engaged in community-based activism throughout the city of Chicago.

Bianca Mena, Bilingual Staff Supervisor, DePaul Family and Community Services, DePaul University

Bianca is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the state of Illinois.

Bianca is serving as one of the lead trainers from the Reimagining Mental Health Supports for Migrants training and consultation initiative for front-line shelter workers. This initiative comes from the Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health to address the acute trauma and adjustment experienced by asylum- seeking migrant arrivals. As part of the initiative, she is completing site visits to the shelters to support staff in implementing the trauma-informed care, mental health promotion strategies shared in the two- part training. Bianca also currently works as a bilingual staff therapist and clinical supervisor with DePaul Family and Community Services, a community mental health clinic through DePaul University serving children and adolescents from neighboring communities. With DePaul FCS, she leads the early childhood mental health team. Bianca is rostered as a Child Parent Psychotherapist. She is a registered Circle of Security Parenting Facilitator and a certified Child- Adult Relationship Enhancement Facilitator.

• Rodin Involvement Resources Flyer

Resources for Recent Arrivals 

• Community Equity Response Collaborative Loyola: Compilation of a range of resources for new arrivals related to access to Medicaid, School, Food, and other critical resources. 
• Rentervention: Resources for folks with housing related questions.
• Get Care Illinois: Shriver Center for Poverty Law resources on eligibility for Medicaid and other health coverage.
• Get Covered Illinois: Illinois Department of Health and Human Services webpage with resources for Medicaid and other health coverage. 
• Forensic Assessment for Immigration Relief (FAIR) Clinic: Medical and psychological professionals performing forensic evaluations for asylum. 

Organizations to Get Involved With

• Latino Union
• Worker Center for Racial Justice

Other Opportunities to Get Involved

• Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health
• Rentervention Referrals: The way for community groups to refer tenants to Lawyer's Center for Better Housing.