Oren Root
Director, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: oroot@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3106
Oren Root has been affiliated with Vera or its spinoff organizations since 1992. He was national director from 1997 to 2000 of Vera’s Appearance Assistance Program, a successful pilot alternative to detention program for immigrants facing deportation. From 2001 to 2007 he was deputy director of the Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC), which fosters police accountability and civilian oversight of law enforcement. He previously served as interim director of Vera’s Bureau of Justice Assistance in South Africa and as director of the Court Employment Project, an alternative to incarceration program for young felony offenders run by the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES). Prior to that, Oren was a criminal defense lawyer in New York for 18 years. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Fordham Law School.
Anita Khashu
Senior Advisor, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: anitakhashu@vera.org
Anita Khashu was the first Director of Vera’s Center on Immigration and Justice, initiating and managing the Institute’s various projects involving immigrants in the justice system. She currently serves as Senior Advisor to the Center. Anita was a 2007-08 Fulbright Scholar in residence at Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico in Mexico City, where she conducted research on Mexican policy and practice of detention and deportation of Central American unaccompanied migrant minors. She joined Vera at the Bureau of Justice Assistance in South Africa in 2002, where she managed Vera’s technical assistance to the Legal Aid Board of South Africa, including helping to implement recently-passed legislation creating a formalized system of plea bargaining. In 2003, Anita returned to New York and moved to the Institute's planning department, where she worked on projects involving immigrant relations with the police. Prior to joining Vera, Anita worked as a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of New York. Anita received her BA from Tufts University and a JD from Boston University School of Law.
Susan M. Shah
Director of the Unaccompanied Children Program, Center on Immigration and Justice e-mail: sshah@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-4026
Susan Shah directs a national program that increases access to legal information and representation for unaccompanied children facing removal (deportation). She also oversees the Translating Justice technical assistance project, which assists law enforcement in overcoming language barriers in serving multilingual communities. Before joining Vera in January 2006, she was a project director at New York University School of Medicine's Center for Immigrant Health where she led projects to facilitate immigrant access and cultural competence in health care. Previously, she was an associate attorney in the immigration practice of Bryan Cave LLP. Susan has also provided pro bono legal assistance to individuals requesting asylum. Susan earned her JD from Northeastern University School of Law, her M.P.H. from Tufts University, and her BA in journalism from Drake University.
Stacey Strongarone
Director of the Legal Orientation Program, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: sstrongarone@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3074
Stacey Strongarone joined Vera in September 2006 to work on a national program to provide detainees in immigration detention facilities with legal rights presentations and pro se legal assistance and a national pro bono outreach program to provide legal representation to unaccompanied children in the immigration system. Previously, Stacey worked as a senior project director at New York University's Center for Community Problem Solving on projects related to criminal justice and reentry, immigrant health, and community economic development. Before law school, Stacey was a legal assistant at San Francisco’s La Raza Centro Legal, working on housing and youth law matters. Stacey received her BA from the College of the Holy Cross and JD from New York University School of Law.
Chirag Badlani
Planning Associate, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: cbadlani@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3046
Chirag Badlani joined Vera in September 2008 to work primarily on the Legal Orientation Program and Unaccompanied Children Pro Bono Project. Chirag recently received his JD from New York University School of Law, where he was a student advocate in the Immigrant Rights Clinic representing people in removal proceedings and working with immigrant and labor organizations on local advocacy campaigns. Prior to law school, he was a project manager at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, where he conducted community outreach for redevelopment projects in South Brooklyn and assisted in neighborhood planning and rezoning efforts. Chirag earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale College.
Olga Byrne
Program Associate, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: obyrne@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3031
Olga Byrne joined Vera in December 2006 to work primarily on the Unaccompanied Children Project within the Center on Immigration and Justice. Previously, Olga worked as a staff attorney at University Settlement, The Door and, prior to that, as an associate attorney in the commercial litigation department of Thelen, Reid & Priest, LLP. While at Thelen Reid, she worked on several pro bono immigration cases, involving asylum and special immigrant juvenile claims. Olga earned her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and JD from Fordham University School of Law.
Zhifen Cheng
Research Associate, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: zcheng@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3175
Zhifen Cheng joined Vera in January 2006 to work on several immigration and justice projects, including the evaluation of the Legal Orientation Program, the Human Trafficking project, and the Unaccompanied Children Project. She specializes in research design, statistical analysis, and program evaluation. Before coming to Vera, she worked in a large health facility in New York City, providing statistical analysis and doing measurement research in clinical psychology. She holds an MA in measurement, statistics, and evaluation and an MA in sociology. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in measurement, evaluation, and statistics at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Rodolfo Estrada
Program Associate, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: restrada@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3045
Rodolfo joined Vera in October 2007 to work on Vera's national Translating Justice language access project with law enforcement and other criminal justice stakeholders. Rodolfo comes to Vera with experience in language access and ensuring immigrant access to government services, particularly education. Previously, he worked as a policy analyst at Advocates for Children, where he worked on the Immigrant Students Rights Project. He has also served as a law clerk for a plaintiff’s side employment law firm and spent two summers as a legal fellow with La Raza Centro Legal, a Latino/immigrant’s rights nonprofit in San Francisco. Rodolfo has a BA from Stanford University, a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and a master's degree in bilingual/bicultural education studies from Columbia University’s Teachers College.
Rose Holandez
Program Analyst, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: rholandez@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3101
Rose Holandez joined Vera in October 2007 to work primarily on the Legal Orientation Program and Unaccompanied Children Pro Bono Project. She recently completed her M.P.A. at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. Among other things, she has worked as an intern with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangkok, Thailand, where she helped improve protection programs for women and girl refugees on the Thai-Burma border. This past year, she also served as a graduate consultant with a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation initiative to rebuild mental health care services for low-income women and children in New Orleans.
Jessica Pulitzer
Coordinator, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: jpulitzer@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3070
Jessica Pulitzer joined the Center on Immigration and Justice as the center coordinator in September 2008. Jessica, who hails originally from Dallas, graduated cum laude from Barnard College, where she worked as both a writing fellow and a peer counselor. During the summers of 2007 and 2008, Jessica also tutored students in Barnard's Higher Education Opportunity Program.
Aryah Somers
Senior Program Associate,
Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: asomers@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3058
Aryah joined Vera in September 2008. Prior to joining Vera, she was a consultant for six months for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-International Catholic Migration Commission resettlement deployment scheme in Ecuador, which works toward increasing the capacity of UNHCR to refer refugees for resettlement consideration. She also worked on child protection and best interest determination development while in Ecuador. From 2005 to early 2008, Aryah worked for the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. She represented detained adults at the Florence Service Processing Center, and later as the children’s attorney, she represented and advocated for detained immigrant and refugee children in Arizona. From 2005 to 2006, Aryah worked with the Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance as a legal advisor for unaccompanied minors in Cairo, Egypt. Aryah was also an associate attorney at Jones Day. She earned her JD from the Georgetown University Law Center, MA from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and BA from George Washington University.
Arnold Son
Research Associate, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: ason@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3051
Arnold Son joined Vera in January 2006 after completing his coursework for an M.S. in urban policy at Milano New School for Management and Urban Policy. While pursuing his master’s degree, he worked as a research associate for the Community Development Research Center at the New School University, performing both qualitative and quantitative analyses. He also worked with the New York City Charter Revision Commission, evaluating the City’s system of reporting against national standards of good governance in order to offer suggestions for improvement. Arnold received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Colgate University in 2002.
Teresa Woods
Senior Program Associate, Center on Immigration and Justice
e-mail: twoods@vera.org
tel: (212) 376-3156
Teresa Woods joined Vera in August 2008 as a senior program associate for the Legal Orientation Program, a national program to provide detainees in immigration detention facilities with legal rights presentations and pro se legal assistance. Before joining Vera, Teresa worked as an associate resettlement officer with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees through the International Catholic Migration Commission in Tanzania, Cambodia, Nepal, and Costa Rica. She completed Oxford University Refugee Studies Centre’s International Summer School on Forced Migration with distinction. Previously, she was awarded a fellowship to work as a detention staff attorney with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., where she represented indigent asylum seekers in detention and conducted know-your-rights presentations for detained immigrants in removal proceedings. Teresa received her BA from SUNY Purchase College and her JD from St. John’s University School of Law.
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