Christian Dorsey was elected to the Arlington County Board in 2015 and currently serves as its Vice-Chair. He represents Arlington on the board of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and is Vice-Chair of its Finance and Budget Committee. He also serves as one of three Arlington commissioners on The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and of the Transportation Planning Board. Prior to joining the Board, Christian was a senior leader at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that promotes economic policies that foster broadly shared prosperity.
Destin
Wilna Destin is an organizer with the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and Hotel and Restaurant Employees (UNITE HERE) Local 737. She is a Haitian TPS holder, a mother, a wife, a hard-working black Haitian women, and a plaintiff in a TPS lawsuit. She fled Haiti when she had no other choice and for decades has done her part to contribute to this country. She refuses to stay in the shadows; she is standing up for her family and other TPS holders against fear, and she believes that immigrant workers and families still can achieve the dignity and security.
Delaney
Congressman John Delaney serves Maryland’s Sixth District. His primary focus in office is to restore our nation’s economic competitiveness so that we can have a strong middle class, raise our standard of living, and expand the number of good jobs available to Americans. In 2011, Delaney founded Blueprint Maryland, a non-profit dedicated to invigorating Maryland’s private sector. He is Chairman Emeritus of CapitalSource, and prior to that, he founded HealthCare Financial Partners, making him the only former CEO of a publicly traded company serving in the House of Representatives. Delaney is a graduate of Columbia University and Georgetown University Law Center.
Cullinane
Sara Cullinane, Esq. is the Director and Co-founder of Make the Road New Jersey, a grassroots, membership-based organization that builds the power of immigrant and working class communities to achieve dignity and respect through community organizing, legal services, policy innovation, and transformative education. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Previously, Sara was a staff attorney and Equal Justice Works fellow at Make the Road New York, representing low-wage immigrant workers in state and federal wage and hour cases and in immigration proceedings.
Cubas
Claudia Cubas joined CAIR Coalition in 2011. She manages and coordinates litigation across all three programs at the organization involving issues related to access to justice, detention, and eligibility for relief for children and adults who are detained by ICE with the jurisdiction of the Fourth Circuit. Through her leadership, legal services to detained adults has grown increasing the number of jails visited and cases referred or represented on a pro bono basis.
Cruz
Assemblymember Elect Catalina Cruz will represent Queens’ District 39, making her the first DREAMer to hold office in New York and the third to serve in an elected office nationally. She is the president of the Latino Lawyers Association of Queens County and coordinates the Association’s Street Law in Spanish program. Previously, she served as the Chief of Staff to the New York City Council Finance Chair and the Director of the Governor’s Exploited Workers Task Force. Catalina holds BA from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a JD from the City University of New York School of Law.
Colin
Diana Colin is the Director of Civic Engagement at [ADD NAME] (CHIRLA). Her work at CHIRLA began as a student volunteer in 2009, and she was hired on as a statewide campaign organizer in 2013. In 2016, the CHIRLA #InmigrantesEnAccion Electoral Campaign registered 11,297 voters and contacted 127,355 voters and had an 82% voter turnout. During the 2018 Midterm Election, she ran the Immigrant Political Power Project (IPPP) which helped to ID over 140,820 low propensity African American, Latino and immigrant voters.
Cho
Stephanie Cho is the Executive Director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Atlanta. She brings over 15 years of experience in labor and community organizing, strategy planning, and fundraising at the local and national level. She has been a community organizer, program director for LGBTQ youth programming, director of training for a national fellowship program, a labor organizer, and organizational consultant. Before coming to Advancing Justice, Stephanie was the Los Angeles Director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC-LA) where she worked to raise industry standards and wages for LA's restaurant workers.
Chen
Annie Chen is the Program Director of the SAFE Network, a national network of cities and counties committed to providing legal representation to immigrants in deportation proceedings and expanding the movement for universal representation. Previously, Annie was the associate program director of the Unaccompanied Children Program at Vera. Annie is a lawyer who practiced at the Legal Aid Society in New York representing detained immigrants and the litigation department of the law firm DLA Piper before joining Vera in January 2013. She holds a BA from Columbia College and a JD from Fordham Law School.
Chavez
Yesenia Chavez is a Policy Analyst at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, leading on immigrant women’s health and rights issues. She is a liaison with congressional offices on these issues and supports NLIRH Latina Advocacy Network’s state policy work. Prior to NLIRH, she was a Legislative Assistant for U.S. Representative Raúl M. Grijalva and advised the congressman on policy matters pertaining to judiciary, voting rights, gun violence, drug policy, human rights, LGBT, women’s rights, military and defense, and more. She got her start on the Hill through the Victory Fund & Institute’s congressional internship program.
Cepla
Zuzana Cepla is a policy and advocacy associate for the National Immigration Forum, where she focuses on supporting the development and execution of Forum policies. Zuzana is primarily dedicated to furthering policies that emphasize workforce development and skills such as English language acquisition, adult education, employment, training, credential attainment and professional licensure.
Castillo
Councilwoman Carmen Castillo has been representing the Ninth Ward of Providence, Rhode Island since her election to the City Council in 2011. Originally from the Dominican Republic, she has been a room attendant at the Westin Hotel for 24 years. Within two years of working at the hotel, Castillo organized her fellow workers and helped form a union to achieve better wages, respect, and a better future for their families. Councilwoman Castillo is active in her community as an advocate for the rights of immigrants, workers, and women.
Bissonnette
Jocelyn Bissonnette is the Director of the Funders Census Initiative at the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP). For nearly a decade previously, she served as Director of Policy & Advocacy for the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS), where she represented public school districts that encompassed American Indian reservations and military installations before Congress and the Administration. In 2017, she served as president of the Committee for Education Funding. Jocelyn earned a B.A. in Economics with a minor in Political Science from the University of New Hampshire and a Masters in Policy Management from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
Bhatt
Priyanka Bhatt has served on the executive board for the Moritz Chapter ACLU, was the staff editor for the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, and has been a legal intern/extern with the Ohio Public Defender’s Office Wrongful Conviction Project; the Atlanta Legal Aid Society; and the Minority Caucus of The Ohio House of Representatives. Through her master’s program, Priyanka did extensive research on different restorative justice models and completed her capstone on food deserts’ negative impact on women. Priyanka is a recent graduate from Ohio State University, where she received her Juris Doctorate and Masters of Arts in Public Administration.
Beyer
Congressman Don Beyer is serving his second term as the U.S. Representative from Virginia’s 8th District. He serves on the Joint Economic Committee, the House Committee on Natural Resources, is Vice Ranking Member of the Science Space and Technology Committee, Ranking Member on the Oversight Subcommittee, and a member of the New Democrat Coalition. He was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1998, and was the Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein under President Obama. He is a graduate of Williams College and was named a Presidential Scholar by President Lyndon Johnson.
Benitez
Ann Marie Benitez serves as the Senior Director of Government Relations at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, where she is responsible for NLIRH’s Washington, D.C. office and oversees all the government relations and policy advocacy work. She comes to NLIRH with over a dozen years of experience in the policy and political arena. For over six years, she was the public policy director for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, Inc. (PPAC) and Interim Vice President at the end of her tenure.
Bell
Denise C. Bell is a researcher at Amnesty International USA, where she focuses on issues concerning refugees and asylum-seekers. Prior to this role, she led implementation of Amnesty USA’s campaign on the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers. She came to Amnesty USA from the U.S. Department of Justice, where she was an Attorney Advisor on the New York Immigration Court. She was previously a Sudan Country Specialist for Amnesty USA and the campaigner for its Darfur campaign. She has worked in various capacities on forced displacement issues since the mid-1990s.
Belcore
Becky Belcore joined the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC) staff as Co-Director in January 2017. NAKASEC’s mission is to organize Korean and Asian Americans to achieve social, racial and economic justice. Prior to NAKASEC, she was the Program Manager of the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund, the Lead Program Officer for Woods Fund Chicago, the Executive Director of the Korean American Resource & Cultural Center, and the Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Service Employees International Union. Becky also was a registered nurse, is active in adoptee rights work, and serves on the boards of HANA Center, the Ella Baker Organizing Fund and BYP100.
Barzegar
Abbas Barzegar, Ph.D. is the Director of Research and Advocacy at the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University’s Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, and a term-member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has published widely across print and broadcast media outlets, and is the is the co-author of Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam (Stanford, 2009). His work has been supported by The European Union, The British Council, The US Institute of Peace (USIP), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), among others.
Danilo Bartelt
Dawid Danilo Bartelt is the Director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Brazil. Bartelt has worked as a journalist, editor, and academic lecturer. From 2002 to 2010, he was the Senior Press Officer of the German division of Amnesty International. He studied in Bochum, Hamburg, Recife (Brazil), and Berlin, and holds a master's degree and doctorate in History.