Defending Noncitizens in a Time of Crisis

This webinar will provide defenders with an update on the rapidly changing landscape of immigration law. We will focus on those changes that may directly impact your clients and give you information and tools you can use in advising and advocating for those clients. Our speakers will share perspectives from sanctuary and non-sanctuary jurisdictions on issues of enforcement, protecting targeted groups, and how to zealously advocate for your noncitizen clients in these critical times.

Mx. Onyx Starrett (they/them) works as one of the criminal-immigration specialists at the Santa Barbara County Public Defender Office, where they provide advice and training to trial attorneys representing noncitizens and advocate for clients through post-conviction relief. Prior to their current position, they worked at Nassau County Public Defender Office, Brooklyn Defender Services, and Ventura County Public Defender as a crimmigration expert, giving advice to clients, negotiating with prosecutors, and representing clients before the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Additionally, Onyx initiated the Deported Veterans Project at Public Counsel in Los Angeles, California, successfully advocating for deported U.S. military veterans to return to the U.S., many as U.S. citizens.

Hena Mansori oversees the Immigration Division at the Cook County Public Defender’s office. Since joining the PD’s office in 2020, she has trained PD staff on their obligations under Padilla v. Kentucky and provided case-specific guidance regarding the immigration consequences of criminal offenses to assistant public defenders representing noncitizen clients. Hena also oversees the office’s removal defense practice, through which the office represents noncitizens facing deportation on a merits-blind model, and its 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.

Jordan Pollock has been the Immigration Specialist at the Dallas County Public Defender’s Office since 2014. In this role, Ms. Pollock advises both public defenders and appointed attorneys of the immigration consequences of the criminal charges against non-citizen clients. Ms. Pollock provides this advice in the form of written advisals, which allow attorneys to satisfy the professional obligations outlined by the Supreme Court in Padilla v. Kentucky. These advisals further provide suggested plea deals intended to protect clients’ immigration status or possible future relief. The first of its kind in Texas, the Immigration Advisal Program at the Dallas Public Defender’s Office now serves as a model for similar programs at public defender’s offices statewide. Ms. Pollock also serves as an adjunct professor at Texas A&M Law School, where she teaches a course in “crimmigration,” and is the vice chair of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer’s immigration committee. Previously, Ms. Pollock was an Equal Justice Works Fellow at Public Counsel in Los Angeles, where she instituted a Legal Orientation Program at two Orange County detention centers and represented detained immigrants in removal proceedings. She received her J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law and her B.A. with honors from Duke University. Before law school, Ms. Pollock was an accredited representative at the New York Legal Assistance Group, where she represented clients in affirmative immigration matters.

Matthew Vogel is a Supervising Attorney at the National Immigration Project (NIPLNG), where he works on litigation, advocacy, and training regarding immigration enforcement and detention as well as issues at the intersection of criminal law and immigration law. Matt joined NIPNLG from the Orleans Public Defenders (OPD) in New Orleans, where for several years as a staff attorney, he built OPD’s immigration practice, providing immigration consequences advising and training on the immigration consequences of criminal legal system involvement. Matt also worked on OPD’s death penalty and juvenile life without parole defense teams and carried a docket of upper-level felonies and misdemeanors. He clerked for the Honorable Keith P. Ellison of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and spent many years living and working at the New York City Catholic Worker, a house of hospitality for unhoused people. Matt graduated from Harvard University, Yale Divinity School, and Yale Law School and lives with his family in New Orleans.

Stacy Taeuber was an immigration resource attorney for the Washington Defender Association from 2021 – 2025 where she worked with defenders and other stakeholders to address the immigration consequences faced by noncitizens accused of crimes. She has over 25 years of experience as an immigrant rights advocate; she has practiced in Florida, Arizona, New York, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and has argued cases before the Arizona and Wisconsin Supreme Courts, the Seventh Circuit, and federal district courts. She spent two years as a public defender in Arizona and was a contract defender in Wisconsin. Stacy founded the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School and served as its director for four years and was a visiting clinical professor in the University of Minnesota Law School’s Federal Immigration Litigation Clinic for two years. Stacy received her B.A. in Spanish from Earlham College and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law School.