During the past year, three new members joined the RFC Board. Claudia Quintero came to us last fall. A recent law school graduate, Claudia is a staff attorney for migrant workers at Central West Justice Center, which focuses on “cases involving humanitarian-based immigration law, employment rights, housing and homelessness issues, and access to public benefits.”
This spring, Javier Luengo-Garrido and Chiedza Rodríguez Pabón also joined the Board. Javier has worked at the ACLU of Massachusetts as Immigrant Protection Project (IPP) Coordinator since 2017. He seeks to empower immigrants by giving them the tools to navigate and understand their own immigration proceedings. Together with local advocates and attorneys, Javier has worked at the US-Mexico border with the Santa Fe Dreamers Project and RAICES, helping transgender women and families seeking asylum to get out of detention, reuniting families and fighting against a broken, dehumanizing immigration system. Prior to joining the ACLU, Javier was a political advisor in Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he worked with Madres de Plaza de Mayo, mothers of the disappeared.
Chiedza has worked with youth for almost two decades. She trained young people in Hartford, CT to conduct participatory action research; facilitated Hartford’s youth commission; and serves as an Adjunct Professor at Capital Community College, teaching group dynamics and practice, and helping design the curriculum for the Community Change Studies degree program. She is currently a student at Western New England School of Law with a primary focus on public interest and employment law.
We welcome Claudia, Javier and Chiedza to the RFC community and thank them for their service to the Board and our beneficiaries.