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 a member of the Michigan Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). In 2013, Susan was appointed by the Michigan Supreme Court to the Foreign Language Board of Review as the LEP Populations Advocate and served 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. Susan is a proud member of the first class of W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network Fellows. She is fluent in Spanish.
Ruby Robinson, Managing 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 a variety of immigration law and immigrant rights cases, including federal litigation to ensure immigrant access to public benefits and programs. She currently leads immigrant worker rights litigation on MIRC's farmworker team. 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.
Ana Raquel Devereaux, Supervising 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 has also represented 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.
Rebeca Ontiveros Chavez, Staff Attorney
Rebeca is a Staff Attorney 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 the Metropolitan State University of Denver. During law school, Rebeca was the Executive Articles Editor of the Michigan Journal of Race and Law, served as Co-President of the Latino Law Students Association, was the Juan Luis Tienda (JLT) Banquet Chair, and the JLT scholarship recipient her first year of law school honoring her commitment to working in underserved Latino communities. Throughout her time in law school, she clerked at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. She also worked as a student attorney in the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic and the Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic. Additionally, she was a summer judicial intern for Judge Laurie J. Michelson, United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, a Summer Associate at an employment law firm, and a summer intern at the Denver City Attorney’s office. Prior to attending law school, Rebeca worked in the United States Senate in Washington, D.C. for Senator Michael Bennet and was the Communications Director for the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association on Capitol Hill. 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.
Sarah Schoettle, Staff Attorney
Sarah is the Washtenaw County Staff Attorney. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Harvard Law School. At HLS, she was active in the Harvard Immigration Project. Prior to joining MIRC, she worked as a Ford Fellow and staff attorney at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Tania Morris Diaz, Staff Attorney
Tania is the Detroit Staff Attorney with Michigan Immigrant Rights Center’s Ann Arbor office. Tania received her B.A. in International Studies with a concentration in Latin American Studies at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. She pursued a master’s in Political and Social Sciences at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City and received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. She worked as a student attorney for the Human Trafficking Clinic, was a Geneva Extern Fellow at International Services for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland and interned at the immigration law office of Michael Carlin in Ann Arbor. She worked as an immigration attorney at Antone, Casagrande and Adwers, P.C. She is fluent in Spanish
Mercedes Rodriguez, Staff Attorney
Mercedes’s focus is primarily on legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children who are in removal proceedings. She received her Juris Doctor from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law and an undergraduate degree in journalism from Indiana University, Bloomington. Mercedes has previously represented children and families in removal proceedings while a staff attorney at La Raza Community Resource Center in San Francisco, CA and at Catholic Charities San Francisco. Prior to becoming an attorney, Mercedes was a journalist. She is fluent in Spanish.
Katrina Pradelski, Staff Attorney
Katrina is a staff attorney in the Unaccompanied Minors program. She represents children in removal proceedings and in their SIJS, asylum, or other cases. Originally from southern Indiana, Katrina is a graduate of the Homeland Security and Public Safety program at Vincennes University. She received her JD from Valparaiso University School of Law in 2015, and has been practicing immigration law in the nonprofit sector ever since. While in law school, Katrina was a student attorney in the Immigration Law Clinic, representing asylum seekers and unaccompanied children. Before joining MIRC, Katrina was a staff attorney in the Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo offices of Justice for Our Neighbors West Michigan. Katrina is based in our Grand Rapids office, and enjoys baking and exploring Michigan’s natural beauty.
Eva Alvarez, Outreach Advocate + DOJ-Accredited Representative (full)
Eva Alvarez is a Department of Justice Accredited Representative and Outreach Advocate for the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center’s Kalamazoo office. Eva focuses on representing clients before the Department of Homeland Security and Executive Office for Immigration Review. In addition, she spends her time educating Michigan migrant and seasonal agricultural workers about their legal rights and helping workers enforce those rights.
She earned her bachelor's degree from Washington State University in Political Science and Criminal Justice. She is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in nonprofit management and leadership from Western Michigan University.
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, UC Program Coordinator + DOJ-Accredited Representative (full)
Camila Trefftz is the Unaccompanied Children Program Coordinator in 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.
Hannah Lehker, Administrative and Legal Assistant
Hannah Lehker started at MIRC as an Intern working with Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural workers, before moving into her current position as an Administrative and Legal Assistant working with unaccompanied children. Hannah graduated from Kalamazoo College in 2017, with a degree in Spanish and Anthropology/Sociology. She spent six months studying in Valparaíso, Chile, and is fluent in Spanish. Her role as an intern gave her the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects with many people of different ages, backgrounds, and experiences. Now in a new position, Hannah has enjoyed the chance to dive deeper into case work with her clients. Hannah is interested in either a career in law, research, or potentially both- only time will tell!
Erika Murcia, Intake Coordinator
Erika Murcia is an Intake Coordinator with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, assisting with the management of our robust intake system and with capacity building in the Detroit Area. She believes that empowering communities through consciousness-raising can bring about social change. Erika earned her bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the University of El Salvador, and her Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan (U-M), where she was a Community-Based Initiative in Detroit Scholar, and a Scholar from the Center for the Education of Women. As a graduate student, she coordinated Relationship Remix an initiative on diversity, inclusion, health and wellness, sexual assault, and violence prevention. Prior to graduate school, Erika worked extensively with nonprofit organizations globally. During her tenure as the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Director for an international agency, she managed programs with diverse populations in various countries. She focuses on human rights advocacy, specifically immigration, gender equity education and mass incarceration prevention. She is fluent in Spanish and English and can read Portuguese.
Jose Rosas, Legal Assistant
Jose is often the primary point of contact for clients seeking legal help at the Kalamazoo office. As a bilingual legal assistant, he conducts intakes and assists attorneys in facilitating resources to clients. Originally from Mexico and the son of migrant farmworkers, he is grateful for the opportunity to serve migrant farmworkers and immigrant families. Prior to going to college, he used to work in the fields with his family. Thus he is passionate about farmworkers’ employment rights and immigration rights. Jose received his BA from Michigan State University in Human Resources and Society. He interned for the League of United Latin American Citizens in Washington, D.C.
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
Denni Middleton, SE Michigan Communities Coordinator for Welcoming Michigan
Denni Middleton is the Communities Coordinator for Welcoming Michigan in Southeast Michigan. She works with community based organizations, local governments, individuals and institutions interested in making their community more welcoming. Denni is originally from Australia where she received her undergraduate degree in Psychology and her Masters in Social Work. Her MSW program gave her the opportunity to participate in an exchange program at the University of Michigan, where she developed a passion for community development and working with diverse communities (as well as a love for Michigan!). She has experience, both locally and internationally, working in nonprofit organizations with a youth focus.
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. She speaks Arabic and French.
MIRC Farmworker Team (Hannah Lehker, Anna Hill, Hillary Scholten & Eva Alvarez)