Michelle N. Méndez is an immigrant who has devoted her legal career to advancing and protecting the rights of immigrants. Michelle serves as the National Immigration Project’s Director of Legal Resources and Training, where she oversees the training, legal resources, and technical assistance curriculums, supervises the Motions to Reopen Project, and engages in federal litigation. Prior to this role, she served as the Director of the Defending Vulnerable Populations Program at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), where she provided training and technical support to immigration practitioners nationwide, co-authored AILA’s publication Representing Clients in Immigration Court publication, engaged in federal litigation, supervised remote response projects, and, from 2015 to 2017, oversaw CLINIC’s role in the Dilley Pro Bono Project. Prior to CLINIC, Michelle served as senior managing attorney at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington (D.C.), where she represented detained and non-detained immigrants in Immigration Court, before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and on appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and the Fourth Circuit. Michelle began her legal career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow sponsored by DLA Piper.

Michelle also values teaching in other fora. From 2010 to 2016, Michelle taught Maryland bar exam essay writing for Shemer Bar Review. From 2013 to 2016, she was an adjunct professor at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, where she co-founded and taught the external Immigration Litigation Clinic along with AILA’s Asylum Primer author Dree K. Collopy. During the 2018 spring semester, Michelle served as a Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, where she taught the Asylum Advocacy in Times of Crisis seminar. Michelle is the Program Director for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy’s public immigration programs.

Michelle has been lucky to receive a number of recognitions for her work, including Rotary International’s Paul Harris Award for commitment to helping others through volunteerism and service (2014); AILA’s Joseph Minsky Young Lawyer Award (2015); The Maryland Daily Record’s Very Important Professional in Maryland (2014); The Baltimore Sun’s Women to Watch in 2017; The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law Rising Star Award (2018); The National Law Journal’s 2018 Immigration Trailblazers recognizing (inaugural list that included 22 attorneys who “moved the needle” in facilitating ever-changing immigration policies); the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) 2019 Robert E. Oliphant Award for Outstanding Service; and the Washingtonian Magazine’s Top Immigration Lawyers List (2020, 2022).

Michelle has a long history with AILA. Prior to law school, Michelle worked in AILA’s Advocacy Department. Michelle has served on the National Asylum Committee and the National Consumer Protection and Unauthorized Practice of Law Action Committee, which she chaired from 2013 to 2015. Michelle has spoken at AILA national, regional, and local conferences for many years.

Michelle has a JD from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, a BA from the University of Richmond, a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University, and a Professional Certificate in Peace and Conflict Resolution through the Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. She is a native Spanish speaker who hails from Medellín, Colombia, speaks French fluently, and has taken Arabic courses. Michelle is a proud longtime resident of Baltimore, Maryland.

Victoria (Vickie) Neilson is a Supervising Attorney at the National Immigration Project, where her work focuses on asylum, border issues, removal defense, and trial skills trainings. In this role, she engages in federal litigation, provides training to practitioners, authors practice advisories, and mentors National Immigration Project members. She has been conducting trial skills trainings with NITA for more than five years.

Before joining the National Immigration Project, Vickie was Managing Attorney of the Defending Vulnerable Populations Program at CLINIC, where she engaged in federal litigation, conducted trainings, and produced practice materials, including co-editing CLINIC’s I-730 manual. While at CLINIC, Vickie was a contributing author to AILA’s book, Representing Clients in Immigration Court.

Vickie served as the founding legal director of the Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC), the country’s first immigration legal fellowship program. IJC grew out of the vision of the late Second Circuit Judge Robert Katzmann, who saw a need for higher quality immigration practitioners at the trial court level, recognizing that the federal courts needed trial practitioners who could develop strong trial records. At IJC, Vickie helped structure the fellowship program and created the training “boot camp” for new fellows as well as monthly ongoing training throughout the fellowship.

Vickie also served as legal director at Immigration Equality, the country’s primary LGBTQ immigrants’ rights organization, where she helped grow the organization from a staff of three to a staff of twenty, and created a nationally recognized pro bono asylum program. In that role, Vickie trained pro bono attorneys and wrote a manual for pro bono LGBTQ asylum cases. She also contributed to both the UNHCR’s (UN Refugee Agency) guidance on LGBTQI refugee adjudication and to USCIS’s asylum officer training module on LBGTQI cases; she regularly trained USCIS asylum officers on these issues. At Immigration Equality, Vickie co-authored AILA’s only LGBTQ-themed book, Immigration Law and the Transgender Client.

Prior to law school, Vickie worked as a tenant organizer in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Single Room Occupancy hotels. She began her career as a lawyer at the HIV Law Project, where she represented low-income, HIV-positive New Yorkers in housing, benefits, and immigration cases. Vickie has also worked as an attorney for the Refugee and Asylum Law Division of USCIS.

Vickie has been an AILA member for more than 25 years. She has served as co-chair and as a current member of AILA’s National Asylum and Refugee Committee, has served on AILA’s National Ethics Committee, and on AILA’s National EOIR Committee. She has played similar roles within New York AILA’s committees. Vickie is a frequent speaker at AILA national, regional, and local conferences. She also regularly provides trainings at the Practicing Law Institute and Federal Bar Association.

Vickie has received numerous awards including: CUNY School of Law’s Distinguished Alumna Award (May 2024); the National LGBT Bar Association’s Inaugural Legal Services Justice Award (2021); Pace Law School’s Persistence Award (2019); the New York City Bar Association’s LGBT Committee Annual Award (2010); and the LGBT Law Association of Greater New York (Le-Gal)’s Community Vision Award (2009).

She has taught immigration law as an adjunct professor at CUNY School of Law and established and taught at NYU School of Law’s LGBT Rights Clinic. She is a graduate of CUNY School of Law and Harvard College.