Fearless Advocacy: Representing Noncitizens in IMMIGRATION Court

NOTE: NAPD membership is NOT required to attend. To create a free account to purchase a ticket please go to: https://publicdefenders.us/create-account/

The ongoing attacks on the rule of law and threat of criminal charges against defense lawyers fulfilling their ethical and constitutional duties to represent their noncitizen clients are intended to chill zealous representation. This webinar will educate attorneys about where the legal boundaries lie and how to navigate challenging situations, empowering you to continue your advocacy with confidence. Our expert panelists will explore real-world scenarios and offer practical guidance on how to protect yourself while zealously representing your noncitizen clients.

Kara Hartzler is a senior appellate attorney at the Federal Defenders of San Diego, Inc.  Prior to joining the Federal Defenders, she served as the Legal Director and Criminal Immigration Consultant at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona. She has written numerous books and articles on the intersection between criminal and immigration law; served as an adjunct immigration professor; litigated hundreds of immigration and criminal appeals before the Ninth Circuit; and testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration on the detention and deportation of citizens and other due process violations in the immigration system.

Stephanie Alvarez-Jones, Southeast Regional Attorney, National Immigration Project

Jennifer Friedman, Deputy Public Defender, San Francisco Public Defender, Immigration Defense Unit

Jordan Pollock is currently the Specialized Unit Chief at the Dallas County Public Defender’s Office, supervising the Appellate, Actual Innocence, Capital Punishment and Immigration units. Before taking on this role, Ms. Pollock was an Immigration Specialist and Supervisor of the
Immigration Unit of the Dallas Public Defender’s office, where she has worked since 2014. Among other duties, Ms. Pollock advises both public defenders and appointed attorneys of the immigration consequences of the criminal charges against non-citizen clients. Ms. Pollock also
serves as an adjunct professor at Texas A&M Law School, where she teaches a course in “crimmigration,” and is 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.

Moderator: Stacy Taeuber, Taeuber Law

Wendy Wayne
Wendy Wayne is an immigration policy consultant and founder of South End Strategies LLC. She is a nationally recognized expert on enforcement policy, legal representation programs and the interplay of immigration and criminal law. Wendy provides strategic guidance to nonprofit
immigration organizations, designs and develops programs that increase access to justice and advises criminal defense and racial justice organizations on the impacts of immigration policy. Wendy is the former Director of the Immigration Impact Unit at the Committee for Public
Counsel Services (CPCS), the Massachusetts public defender agency, where she provided comprehensive training and advice to court-appointed attorneys throughout Massachusetts and engaged in systemic litigation on issues regarding immigration enforcement. She is a frequent
speaker at state and national conferences. Prior to becoming an immigration expert, Wendy was a trial attorney at CPCS, representing individuals charged with serious felonies. Wendy is the former Chair of the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration and
currently serves as a Special Advisor. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA)’s National ICE Liaison and Removal Defense Committees. She previously served on the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council Task Force on Secure
Communities, the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission and the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Jodi Ziesemer is the Policy Director for Immigration Emergency Response at the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) where she serves as a resource for NYLAG and partners organizations to summarize and digest changes to federal immigration policy and practice and engages in community-center advocacy on a local, state, and national level. Prior to joining NYLAG, Jodi was a supervision attorney at Catholic Charities in their Unaccompanied Minors Program. In that position, Jodi coordinated representation of recently arrived unaccompanied immigrant children and oversaw a team of attorneys who provide services to immigrant youth detained with the Office of Refugee Resettlement. In addition, she has worked for the past ten years representing a wide variety of immigrants in front of Executive Office of Immigration Review (Immigration Court) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Prior to graduating summa cum laude from New York Law School, Jodi worked as a Board of Immigration Appeals representative for the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago and as a paralegal at Fitzgerald and Company, LLC in Boston. During her more than twenty years in immigration law, Jodi has worked on a range of projects including anti-human trafficking initiatives, naturalization drives, pro bono asylum clinics, innovative representation projects for unaccompanied minors and victims of violent crime. Jodi holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Grinnell College and a Master’s in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a J.D. from New York Law School. Jodi served an adjunct professor at St. John’s University and she co-authored an article for the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal entitled, “The Right to Have Rights: Loss of Citizenship, Asylum, and Constitutional Principles.” (Vol 30, No 3, Spring 2016).