CO-FOUNDER, PRESIDENT

Becky (she/her) is an attorney and the Director of Economic Empowerment in the Office of the State Treasurer.  Becky started working with asylum seekers more than ten years ago through her law school’s immigration clinic. Since then, she has worked in a pro bono capacity on a number of immigration matters, including volunteering at the southern border in 2018 and 2019. In 2021, she co-founded the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. She is licensed to practice law in Vermont and New York.  Becky lives in Burlington, VT with her husband and three children.

CO-FOUNDER, VICE PRESIDENT

Kate (she/they, ella/elle) is the Executive Director at Milk with Dignity Standards Council (MDSC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the monitoring and enforcement of labor rights on farms in the Milk with Dignity Program. MDSC also works to connect participating farms to funding and support from housing partners, making it possible to build new farmworker housing units around the state. Kate holds a doctorate in Latin American Studies from the University at Albany (SUNY) and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where they researched social movement organizing in Colombia. After teaching college for a decade, Kate worked in asylum seeker support and advocacy in Vermont and co-founded the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project before joining MDSC. Kate lives in Burlington with her two children.

TREASURER

Juan (he/him, el) is a finance professional and small business owner originally from Venezuela. Bio forthcoming!

SECRETARY

Aisa (she/her) is an alum of Vermont Law and Graduate School and a licensed attorney practicing in New York and Georgia. As a principal of Diallo Law, she actualizes her deep-seated passion for immigration law representing individuals held in detention facilities and those facing immigration detainers across the United States. Raised in The Bronx by Guinean parents, she witnessed firsthand the challenges faced by immigrant communities, which fueled her determination to make a difference in this field.

DIRECTOR

Trudy (she/her) is a mother who immigrated to the USA in 2018 and settled in Vermont. With the help of law student clinicians at Vermont Law and Graduate School, the Chittenden Asylum Seekers Assistance Network, and the community, her case was approved by a Boston Immigration Court Judge in 2022 amidst so many challenges. As a highly trained finance professional, she worked with the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity for several years before joining the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, called to both nonprofits' missions of helping improve the lives of local community members. Trudy loves Vermont and to her, this is a home away from home.