Leadership

I’m Emily, co-president of the Harvard Immigration Project and a proud Latina from Miami, Florida. I first joined HIP through the Community Engagement team, and I now also serve with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. As the daughter of immigrants, I’m deeply committed to supporting immigrant communities, with a particular focus on the intersection of labor and immigration. I speak Spanish and am passionate about working directly with clients to help advance justice and dignity for all.

Co-President

Kaitlyn is a 2L from Hillsboro, Oregon. Before law school, she worked at the National Immigration Forum to advocate for immigration reform. She spent her 1L summer at Aaron Halegua, PLLC, a small firm that represents victims of human trafficking. As Co-Presidents, Emily and I are excited to connect students with the greater Boston area, provide helpful resources as policy continues to develop, and foster a strong HIP community for those interested in immigration work.

Mariana (she/her) is a 2L at Harvard Law School passionate about immigration law.  Before law school, she worked at a non-profit helping immigrants start and grow their small businesses. As Social Chair, she hopes to help create a strong and active community of students passionate about supporting immigrants.

My name is Aimee and I’m the Director of Finance for the Harvard Immigration Project.  Currently a 2L at HLS, I am interested in working on matters pertaining to human rights, refugees, and international law.  I graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA in Philosophy and I call both Hawaii and Taiwan home.  I enjoy cooking, especially exploring new recipes and discovering new foods that my daughter likes to eat!

Anna is a 2L from Los Angeles, California, and she is particularly interested in the intersection of immigrants’ rights and children’s rights. Before starting law school, Anna worked for two years as a paralegal on class actions focused on promoting and defending children’s rights across the U.S. This past summer, she interned with Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project’s Unaccompanied Children Team. As IRAP Director, Anna is looking forward to supporting the IRAP team’s case work and policy projects.

Hi all, I’m Moses! I’m a 2L from Houston, Texas and the head of HIP’s Policy Team. I’m a huge fan of hiking, creative writing, and looseleaf tea; empirical evidence strongly suggests that I also enjoy long evenings on Westlaw. As a side note: before coming here, I spent two years as a consultant and exactly zero seconds doing anything immigration-related, so if you’re wondering whether you have enough experience to get involved, I can assure you that your enthusiasm and time are enough to make a real difference, and that we’d be extremely lucky to have you!

I am a 3L from the DC area who is interested in practicing immigration law in the non-profit sector. My job this year is to keep you all up-to-date on all things HIP, and to share what we do via social media.

Julia (she/ her) is a 3L and excited to help head CES with Karen. Before law school, she worked for seven years at several immigrants’ rights and workers’ rights nonprofits. She interned her 1L summer with the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee and her 2L summer with the King County Department of Public Defense. During 2L, she participated in the Family Justice Clinic and the Crimmigration Clinic and during 3L, she will be an independent clinical student with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and a student attorney with the Criminal Justice Institute.

I’m a 2L interested in civil rights and immigration law. I’m from Los Angeles.

Cindy Zapata is a Clinical Instructor in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. She supervises and trains students in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic (HIRC) and in the Crimmigration Clinic. As part of HIRC, she supervises and trains law students working on applications for asylum and other humanitarian protections. In the Crimmigration Clinic, she focuses mainly on direct representation, including bond representation and immigration applications. She coordinates various community outreach efforts, including Know-Your-Rights presentations and Advice and Counsel sessions in the greater Boston area. She also serves as the supervising attorney for the HLS Immigration Project (HIP), a student-practice organization at HLS focused on immigration-related efforts and advocacy. She was previously a litigation associate at Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP. She holds a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law, and a B.A. in Political Science from Queens College – CUNY.

Morgan Drake is a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. She supervises and trains students in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and in the Crimmigration Clinic. She also supervises the HLS Immigration Project (HIP), a student-practice organization focused on immigration-related community engagement efforts and advocacy. Morgan was previously a Litigation Attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), where she protected the due process rights of detained noncitizens through appellate representation at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and federal courts. During her two-year Equal Justice Works Fellowship, Morgan did not lose a single case before the BIA. Morgan holds a J.D. From DePaul University College of Law (COL), where, through DePaul COL’s International Human Rights Law Institute, she co-presented an amicus brief to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights advocating for differentiated approaches for particularly vulnerable populations subject to detention throughout the Americas. Prior to law school, Morgan worked with detained unaccompanied minors as a paralegal and DOJ-Accredited Representative on NIJC’s Children’s Protection Project. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology and Spanish from Augustana College.