Marisa Limón Garza
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Marisa is a native fronteriza with over 20 years of experience engaging communities through deep listening, advocacy, and education who currently leads Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center as the organization’s executive director.
Prior to joining Las Americas, Marisa was the senior director for advocacy and programming at the Hope Border Institute, a social justice nonprofit organization working in El Paso, TX, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Robert Heyman
STRATEGIC ADVISOR
Gloria Amesquita
LEGAL ASSISTANT (CVP)
Gloria is a graduate of NMSU with a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice and a Bachelor’s Degree from UTEP. Gloria has been an immigration paralegal since early 2015. She worked under the Law Office of Carlos Spector for over 7 years primarily focused on representing Mexican asylum seekers in the borderland. Currently, she works under the Crime Victims Program which represents victims of domestic abuse, human trafficking and other qualifying crimes.
Jennifer Babaie
DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY AND LEGAL SERVICES
Jennifer focuses on developing, organizing, and supervising LAIAC’s three legal focus areas, including removal-defense work and legal education programs for persons seeking entry at the U.S./Mexico border. Prior to LAIAC, she spent six years working with the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) in New York, where she created and ran IRAP’s first-ever U.S.-Mexico Border Program, designed to utilize tech systems and local partnerships to provide remote, quality legal representation to asylum-seekers and other displaced persons seeking admission into the U.S. Jennifer received a J.D. and M.A. in International Law and Organizations from George Washington University and a B.S. from Santa Clara University magna cum laude. She speaks Greek, Assyrian, and is learning Spanish.
Jorge Rodriguez
UNM Fellow Attorney (CMAP)
Betsy Allen-Rodriguez
ACCREDITED REPRESENTATIVE
Betsy came to Las Americas in 2005 after retiring from 30+ years as a classroom teacher. She has represented many unaccompanied minors and asylum seekers before the immigration courts. She has also represented individuals on a wide range of applications including U-Visa, residency, special immigrant juvenile status, DACA, and naturalization. She was honored by the El Paso Young Lawyers Association with the Liberty Bell Award in 2010 and 2015 for her contribution to the El Paso judiciary community. Betsy holds a B.A. in English from the University of Tennessee and M.Ed. from Georgia State University.
Christina Garcia
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
Christina “Christi” was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. A graduate from UTEP, with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Sociology. As part of the Las Americas team since 2009, she currently directs the Crime Victims Program, and provides legal representation to immigrant victims of domestic abuse, human trafficking and other qualifying crimes, while providing valuable support to other staff members. Christi is a first generation U.S. born citizen, college/university graduate and professional.
“I am proud to say that I come from a humble background. I am 100% fronteriza, which is open to interpretation.”
Rachel Jackson
PROGRAM COORDINATOR (CMAP)
Rachel is a DOJ Accredited Representative and has worked at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center on the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border since 2017. She currently coordinates the General Immigration Program, representing clients in removal proceedings and those applying for affirmative benefits.
Born and raised in El Paso and the daughter of a Colombian immigrant, Rachel is committed to struggling alongside migrant communities to collectively create a better future.
Crystal Sandoval
DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES (LAMX)
Crystal is the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Co-Director of Las Americas Mexico. She is Fronteriza from Cd. Juarez and El Paso, working for Las Americas to provide legal support to migrants on the border.
Allie Gonzalez
EXECUTIVE OPERATIONS OFFICER
Elyse McMahon
LEGAL ASSISTANT (CMAP)
Elyse (she/her/hers) has been a legal assistant with the Community Migrant Advocacy Program (CMAP) at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center since August 2020. In this role, she works with her team to provide direct legal services to clients in the community seeking assistance with their immigration proceedings, including asylum, residency, citizenship, DACA, and parole. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Human Rights Studies and Political Science from the University of Dayton in May 2020. Upon graduating, Elyse decided to move to El Paso to work at Las Americas, as she had always admired their mission to provide high quality services at low or no cost. She also serves as a board member for the Fronterizx Fianza Fund, a bond fund that pays immigration and criminal bonds and bails for incarcerated individuals in the West Texas region.
Zoe Bowman
SUPERVISING ATTORNEY (DETAINED)
Zoe is the supervising attorney of the Detained Deportation Defense Team. Her practice focuses on asylum and removal defense and providing pro se support to people detained in El Paso and New Mexico. Zoe is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law (J.D. 2021) and Macalester College (B.A. 2016). Zoe worked as a student attorney at Northeastern's Immigrant Justice Clinic and organized Street Law Clinics with the National Lawyers Guild. Prior to law school, she worked at the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center as a legal assistant and assisted in a variety of humanitarian visas, DACA, and citizenship applications. In her free time, she loves mountain biking and climbing around New Mexico and West Texas.
Sandra Macias
FINANCIAL OPERATIONS MANAGER
Heidi Cerneka, Esq.
STAFF ATTORNEY (CVP)
Heidi Cerneka is an attorney working with the Las Americas detained team. Prior to Las Americas, she spent over twenty years working as an advocate with incarcerated women in Latin America. She recently graduated from law school and was in Kenya for a year working with refugees through Jesuit Refugee Services and with a program that trained incarcerated Kenyan women to be paralegals.
Jorge Dominguez
LAIAC Fellow Attorney (Detained)
Jorge was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, graduated from the UTEP with a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice in the fall of 2018.
After interning for Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services, Inc., Jorge attended Texas Tech University School of Law, obtaining his Juris Doctor in May 2022.
Jorge initially interned with Las Americas as a law student, eventually becoming a fellow for the Detained Deportation Defense Program in April 2023. Jorge’s work aims to help detained asylum seekers reach the stage in which an immigration judge fully hears and decides their claims—an increasingly difficult feat amid the expanded use of expedited removal. Jorge passionately believes that migration is a meaningful human right we cannot overlook despite the politics it may invoke.
Diana Nevarez Ramirez
LEGAL ASSISTANT (DETAINED)
Diana is a legal assistant on the Detained Deportation Defense Program. She joined the Las Americas team 4 years ago as the Volunteer Coordinator before switching roles to work on the Detained Team in January 2022. Her work with detained clients focuses mainly in supporting Pro Se Respondents with their I-589s, evidence, and release requests. She's also had the pleasure of working with Attorney Zoe Bowman on full representation merits cases before the Immigration Court as well.
Leticia Macias
LEGAL ASSISTANT (DETAINED)
Letty was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. She is a proud UTEP alumnus, having graduated with a B.S. in Education in 1989 and subsequently earned a Bilingual Certification. She was later awarded a UTEP B.E.E.M.S. Fellowship and completed an M. Ed in Bilingual Education;1997. She retired after 30 years of teaching elementary grades in Socorro ISD. Post retirement, Letty volunteered at Las Americas for two years prior to becoming a staff member in the Detained Deportation Defense Team, where she now passionately advocates for clients as a legal assistant.
Clarissa Boone
CLIENT EMPOWERMENT SPECIALIST (DETAINED)
Clarissa serves in the Detained Deportation Defense Program focusing on administrative tasks for the team as well as overseeing the intake process of potential clients in El Paso and New Mexico.
Clarissa is a graduate of The University of Texas at El Paso, having graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Organizational and Corporate Communication with a Minor in Legal Reasoning in 2022.
Clarissa completed an internship through UTEP in Las Americas, where she assisted the Detained Team Supervising Attorney as his legal assistant and worked in the intake process. After graduating she joined the staff in 2022.
In her free time, she loves painting, exercising, and car racing.
Edna Maldonado
MEXICO TEAM (LAMX)
Edna es Auditor Interno, Originaria de Zapopan Jalisco, Mexico. Egresada de la Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara. Actualmente soy Paralegal y Asistente Administrativo en la oficina en México, Las Américas Centro de Apoyo al Migrante Organización Binacional.
Mireya Olinda Sierra Montana
RECEPTIONIST (LAMX)
Mireya es psicóloga, orgullosamente mexicana. Nacida en Chihuahua, Chih. Y egresada de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Mx. De la facultad de ciencias de la Conducta. Actualmente trabaja en el equipo de LAMX en Cd. Juárez, Chih. Para ella ha sido muy gratificante compartir y apoyar en el servicio y atención de los clientes todos Migrantes de diferentes nacionalidades, que requieren nuestra atención e interacción para brindarles un apoyo en su tránsito por esta frontera, para llegar a su destino final: USA. Le honra ser un integrante más de esta gran organización de Las Americas bi-Nacional (MX-USA) como Gestora de Casos y brindar apoyo a todo migrante que busca una oportunidad de calidad de vida fuera de su país de origen.