Susan Reed, Managing Attorney
Susan E. Reed is Managing Attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. Susan is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and Marquette University. Susan has practiced immigration and immigrant rights law since 2003. Susan has also served as a staff attorney at Farmworker Legal Services of Michigan and as a regional attorney for Justice for Our Neighbors, the immigration legal services program of the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Her particular interests include the intersection of family and immigration law, the rights of unaccompanied immigrant children, immigrant eligibility for public benefits and programs, and civil rights matters. Susan is Secretary of the Steering Committee for the Michigan Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (MCIRR) and co-chairs the Advocacy Committee of the Michigan Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). She has served as an advisor to several State Bar of Michigan committees and initiatives. Her research and commentary has been published in Clearinghouse Review among other publications. In 2013, Susan was appointed by the Michigan Supreme Court to the Foreign Language Board of Review and serves as a committee member of the Court's Limited English Proficiency Implementation Advisory Committee. Susan is also a member of the Detroit City Council Immigration Task Force. She is available to handle or co-counsel impact cases referred by attorneys and advocates. Susan is a proud member of the first class of W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network Fellows. Susan is fluent in Spanish.
Ruby Robinson, Supervising Attorney
Ruby focuses, primarily, on immigration relief available to victims of domestic violence and crime. He graduated from Wayne State University Law School and the University of Michigan. He worked as a staff attorney at Lakeshore Legal Aid's Counsel & Advocacy Law Line and at LA VIDA, a partnership of Lakeshore Legal Aid and Community Health and Social Services, Inc. During law school, Ruby worked as student attorney with the school's Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic, during which he represented clients in asylum cases. Prior to law school, Ruby served as an AmeriCorps*VISTA in Brooklyn, NY for a social services agency. He is available to consult on and assist with cases involving victims of crime and domestic violence, as well as naturalization matters.
Anna Hill, Staff Attorney
Anna graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating she worked as an Overseas Fellow with a legal clinic for victims of human trafficking at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México in Mexico City. As a law student she served as a student attorney with Michigan Law’s Human Trafficking Clinic and as a legal intern for an immigration law firm. She also interned with the University of California, Berkeley’s East Bay Community Law Center Immigration practice . She has represented clients in cases for affirmative asylum, victims of crime and domestic violence, and prosecutorial discretion. Prior to law school she worked with immigrants as a caseworker for Head Start and the USDA’s Agrability program. She is fluent in Spanish.
Darren Miller, Staff Attorney
Darren is a staff attorney in the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center's Ann Arbor Office. He was formerly a Justice Americorps Member Attorney in the same office. Darren focuses on providing legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children who are in removal proceedings. He has a special interest in assisting persons fleeing violence and persecution. He received his JD from the University of Michigan Law School and his BA in International Studies from the University of Chicago. While in law school, Darren worked on issues pertaining to LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers at the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration (ORAM) in San Francisco. He was also a fellow at the European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) in Brussels. Darren speaks French and Turkish.
Ana Raquel Devereaux, Staff Attorney
Ana Raquel Devereaux has been an attorney with Michigan Immigrant Rights Center since December of 2014. She began her work with MIRC representing unaccompanied children seeking asylum, SIJS, and T- visas. Ana Raquel now continues to work with unaccompanied children, while focusing the majority of her work on providing immigration services for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. Ana Raquel is a fluent Spanish speaker and she attended Calvin College for her undergraduate degree in International Relations with a minor in Latin American Studies and received her J.D. from Wayne State University. She is currently based in the Kalamazoo office on Mondays and the Grand Rapids office on Tuesdays through Fridays.
Rebeca Ontiveros Chavez, DOJ Accredited Representative
Rebeca is a fully-accredited DOJ representative with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center’s Ann Arbor Office. She focuses primarily on legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children who are in removal proceedings. Rebeca received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and her B.A. from Metropolitan State University of Denver. During law school, Rebeca clerked at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. She also worked as a student attorney in the school's Child Welfare Appellate Clinic and the Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic. Prior to law school, Rebeca worked in the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. She is fluent in Spanish.
Catherine Villanueva, Staff Attorney
Catherine focuses on immigration relief available to victims of domestic violence and crime. She graduated with a full scholarship from the University of Toledo College of Law and completed her undergraduate degree at Western Michigan University. She has 5 years experience as a paralegal and speaks English, Spanish and Korean. Before her legal career, she operated her own business in Chicago, Illinois and also worked for Samsung Electronics in Seoul, South Korea. She currently works in the Kalamazoo office and is available to assist with cases involving victims of crime and domestic violence. In her free time, she enjoys trail running and has completed several ultramarathons.
Hillary Scholten, Staff Attorney
Hillary graduated with honors from the University of Maryland School of Law in 2012. Following law school, she clerked in the Immigration Unit of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan. In 2013, she joined the United States Department of Justice through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. There, she worked as an Attorney Advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals until joining MIRC in July of 2017. For five years, prior to and during law school, Hillary worked as a BIA accredited representative assisting immigrants and refugees with a wide range of immigration legal needs, mainly at Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C. Hillary is based in our Grand Rapids office. She is fluent in Spanish.
Eva Alvarez, Outreach Advocate
Eva Alvarez is the Outreach Advocate for the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center’s Kalamazoo office. Eva focuses on educating Michigan migrant and seasonal agricultural workers about their legal rights and helping workers enforce those rights. She is a graduate of Washington State University (WSU). While at WSU, Eva studied Political Science and Criminal Justice. She interned for the National Migrant Seasonal Head Start Association in Washington D.C. where she completed her internship with Farmworker Justice. During her internship, she presented at the International Child Labor Conference and lobbied congressmen on the value of the Head Start Program. Shortly after her internship in Washington D.C., Eva also interned at the Washington State House of Representatives where she worked with the minority chair caucus and minority floor leader. Eva also worked for Farmworker Legal Services as an outreach advocate educating migrant and seasonal agricultural workers statewide about their legal rights. She has an interest in social and economic justice, especially in the area of worker and immigrant rights. Eva is fluent in Spanish.
Camila Trefftz, Administrative Assistant
Camila Trefftz is the Administrative Assistant at our Kalamazoo office, working specifically with unaccompanied children who are in removal proceedings. Camila recently graduated from Kalamazoo College with a degree in psychology and a minor in political science. Throughout her undergraduate degree, she worked as a research assistant on projects studying psychology and music, the adverse effects of foreclosure on mental health, political genocide in Colombia, and transitional justice. She is passionate about the intersection between public policy and human development, particularly focusing on how the effects of adverse childhood experiences can be mitigated. When Camila was six years old, her family emigrated from Colombia. Camila speaks Spanish and German.
Christine Sauvé, Welcoming Michigan Director
Christine Sauvé coordinates activities in southeast Michigan for the Welcoming Michigan project, MIRC’s statewide grassroots immigrant integration initiative. She works to connect U.S. and foreign-born residents in metro Detroit. Christine received her BA from the University of Michigan Residential College and MSW from the University of Michigan School of Social Work. She is interested in community organization and social systems, with a focus on multicultural community organizing. Christine served as a Peace Corps Volunteer for three years in Mauritania and Senegal in West Africa. She is a member of the National Association of Social Workers
Meagan Roche, West Michigan Communities Coordinator, Welcoming Michigan
Meagan Roche is the Communities Coordinator for Welcoming Michigan in MIRC’s Kalamazoo office where she serves in building a more inclusive and welcoming community for immigrants. She has been otherwise involved in intercultural and multinational projects in her work with education and refugees both locally in West Michigan and internationally across the Middle East and North Africa. Invested in issues of education, community development, and refugee diasporas and resettlement, she believes in the power of connection in building strong and welcoming communities. Speaking Arabic and French, she spends much of her free time chatting and playing with her Congolese and Sudanese neighbor kids.
Yuliya Harris, Southeast Michigan Communities Coordinator, Welcoming Michigan
Yuliya Harris is the Southeast Michigan Communities Coordinator for Welcoming Michigan, based in the Detroit office. She works to build more inclusive and immigrant-supportive communities in the Macomb, Oakland, and Washtenaw counties. Yuliya received her BA from Wayne State University in Detroit and is currently completing her Masters of Public Administration from Wayne State University. Prior to joining Welcoming Michigan, she worked as an international student advisor at WSU. Yuliya is fluent in Russian.
MIRC Farmworker Team (Hannah Lehker, Anna Hill, Hillary Scholten & Eva Alvarez)