Rights Night: Our Rights, Our Issues

Talia Inlender

Talia Inlender is a Supervising Senior Staff Attorney in the Immigrants’ Rights Project at Public Counsel in Los Angeles, where she manages the agency’s work related to detained immigrants. In this role, Talia works with people incarcerated by immigration authorities including asylum seekers, residents and non-residents with deep family and community ties to the United States, among others. Talia also trains and supervises attorneys, legal fellows, and law students representing detained immigrants in their immigration proceedings. Talia has herself litigated cases on behalf of immigrants before Immigration Judges; the Board of Immigration Appeals; and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Talia’s portfolio also includes impact litigation on behalf of immigrants. She is co-counsel on Franco-Gonzalez v. Holder, the first lawsuit to establish a right to government-appointed counsel for a class of immigrants with serious mental disabilities, F.L.B. v. Lynch and C.J.L.G. v. Barr, lawsuits to vindicate children’s right to counsel in immigration proceedings, and International Refugee Assistance Project v. Kelly, a lawsuit challenging the detention of an Afghan family entering on Special Immigrant Visas during the Muslim ban. Talia is a former judicial clerk to the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University (B.A. 2001) and Yale Law School (J.D. 2007).

Miriam Jordan

Miriam Jordan is a national immigration correspondent for The New York Times. She reports from a grassroots perspective on the impact of immigration policy on people in the country legally and illegally; on the labor market and on demographics. Before joining The Times, Ms. Jordan worked at The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. She has been a reporter in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. She speaks Portuguese, Spanish, French and Hebrew.

Lindsay Toczylowski

Lindsay Toczylowski is a founding member and the current Executive Director at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a next-generation social justice law firm based in Los Angeles. For the past decade, Lindsay has served as a legal advocate for a variety of California-based organizations dedicated to making immigrant rights on paper into rights in reality. Her team works to defend immigrant communities against systemic injustices in the legal system. Lindsay’s expertise encompasses human rights law, immigration, refugee law, international development, and the rule of law. Previously, she was Directing Attorney at the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Projects, Overseas Operations Director for Asylum Access, and a Staff Attorney at Kids in Need of Defense.

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and immigrated to California with his family at the age of five. He received a BA from Sacramento State University and an MFA from the University of Michigan. Castillo is the author of Cenzontle (BOA Editions, 2018), which was chosen by Brenda Shaughnessy as the winner of the 2017 A. Poulin, Jr. Prize. A founding member of the Undocupoets, he teaches poetry to incarcerated youth and also teaches at the Ashland University low-res MFA program. He lives in Marysville, California.

Illustration courtesy of Shepard Fairey/Obeygiant.com