Our Special Programs Team

Kayleen Hartman is the Managing Attorney for Special Programs at KIND. She comes to the role having previously served as the Director of the Removal Defense Project at the Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic at Loyola Law School. Kayleen's previous roles at immigration non-profits include her work as the Pro Bono Coordinator for the Children’s Representation Project at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and as a staff attorney at Ayuda, a Washington D.C. immigrants’ rights organization. In addition to immigration work, she has served as policy counsel for human trafficking issues at Shared Hope International, and been a fellow at Georgetown's Human Rights Institute, where she worked on school-to-prison pipeline issues. Kayleen earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center with a Certificate in Refugee and Humanitarian Emergencies. In 2011, she received Georgetown’s Bettina Prukmayer Award for Human Rights. Kayleen received her B.A. from Davidson College.

Florence Chamberlin is the Managing Attorney for the Mexico Initiative. Previously, Florence was the Supervising Attorney for KIND's Family Separation Response Team where she managed family separation cases originating at the KIND field offices in San Francisco, Seattle and Fresno. Ms. Chamberlin is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Prior to joining KIND, Ms. Chamberlin exclusively practiced immigration law representing corporations and individuals in proceedings before the various administrative offices of the Department of Homeland Security (USCIS, ICE, CBP) and at consular offices around the globe. She has extensive experience with complex family immigration matters as well as removal defense before the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) and the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Lauren Keenan supports the Special Programs- Mexico Department at KIND, which she joined in October 2021. She graduated from New York University with a degree in Latin American Studies & Human Rights from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2008, and earned her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in 2013. Lauren has been an advocate for immigrants throughout her career, with a particular focus on survivors of human trafficking and other violent crime. Most recently, she was the Supervising Attorney for the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center’s anti-trafficking project. Prior to that role, Lauren spent several years as a staff attorney with NMILC representing survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and those seeking asylum in the United States. Before beginning law school, she worked as an intensive case manager for immigrant survivors of human trafficking in New York City, and her experience working with directly with clients and learning more about the challenges facing the immigrant community in the United States inspired her to apply to law school and become an immigration attorney.

Hillary graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Geography. Shortly thereafter, she pursued her law degree from Thurgood Marshall School of Law. During law school she interned with the Harris County Public Defender’s Office, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, and the Northwest Justice Project. Hillary began her immigration legal career representing adults in family petitions, bonds, and removal defense. She was later hired by Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston to represent unaccompanied immigrant children in removal proceedings. Hillary worked with children who feared return to their country due to violence, children that had suffered trauma, and child trafficking victims. She has experience representing clients before the immigration court, USCIS, consular officials, and law enforcement agencies. Hillary is licensed to practice law in Texas and is fluent in Spanish.

Rodolfo is a passionate about social justice and advancing the rights of the immigrant community, children, and other vulnerable populations. He joined KIND Baltimore in 2017 as a Gallogly Family Foundation Public Interest Fellow and transitioned to the Family Separation Team after completing his fellowship. He is a graduate of American University—Washington College of Law (JD) and Yale University (BA). While in law school, Rodolfo served as a student attorney for the Immigrant Justice Clinic and spent the majority of his time interning and volunteering at public interest organizations, including Whitman-Walker Health Legal Services, ABA Center on Children and the Law, CAIR Coalition, and South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR). Prior to law school, Rodolfo worked for five years an elementary school teacher, primarily teaching at Title I schools in Houston and Miami. Rodolfo grew up in Brownsville, TX and currently resides in Austin, TX with his husband.

Gabriel Moreno supports the Family Separation Team at KIND, joining in 2015. Prior to joining KIND, Gabriel focused his representation of clients in civil practice. During that time, he began volunteering his time as a pro bono attorney for the organization representing clients in immigration court and the Circuit Courts of Maryland, as well as helping other KIND pro bono attorneys communicate with their Spanish-speaking clients. Born and raised in Texas, Gabriel graduated from Texas A&M University with a B.A. in Philosophy then from the University of Texas at El Paso with a B.A. in Organizational and Corporate Communication. He then obtained his J.D. from the Massachusetts School of Law. As a son of immigrant parents and a native Spanish speaker, Gabriel is empathetically motivated with a moral duty to help children who face procedural and language barriers once here in the United States. Gabriel is barred in Massachusetts, Maryland, the U.S. District Court District of Maryland, and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Rachel Bennion supports the Family Separation and Special Programs team at KIND. She joined KIND in April 2021. Prior to joining KIND, Rachel helped manage the immigration pro bono program and represented clients seeking immigration relief at Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services in Washington, D.C. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts in English, a Master of Public Administration, and a J.D. from Brigham Young University. Her prior experiences include serving as a community organizer for a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA, completing clerkships with the National Immigration Law Center and Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, and representing unaccompanied minors in Asylum and Special Immigrant Juvenile cases at Catholic Charities San Francisco. She is fluent in Spanish and is a member of the California Bar.

Cielo Fortin-Camacho is a proud immigrant committed to serving vulnerable populations. Prior to joining KIND’s border team in Juarez, Mexico, Cielo spent 3 years in Baltimore, Maryland providing client-centered, trauma-informed, culturally competent legal services and representation to unaccompanied minor children in asylum cases, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, T visas, and U visas as well as removal proceedings before the Immigration Court. She also provided technical assistance and mentoring to pro bono partners likewise representing unaccompanied minor children. Cielo has written for numerous publications, including various chapters of the number one cited global money laundering and anti-terrorism treatise. Additionally, Cielo’s articles and comprehensive research on diversity within the legal profession has won awards and served as training material at state bar conferences. Cielo is a graduate of Texas A&M School of Law, where she represented the law school as a Scribe inductee with The American Society of Legal Writers, served as the president of the Immigration Law Initiative and International Law Society, and was the recipient of several public interest grants. Cielo is also a graduate of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, and Dalian University of Foreign Languages in Dalian, China. Cielo currently serves as the vice-president of Benny’s Books, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit she co-founded to promote literacy among Latino children and children from low-income families. Cielo speaks French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and English.

Nick Stefaniak is a Senior Attorney based in Tijuana with KIND’s Mexico Initiative. Prior to joining KIND, he worked for Catholic Charities of Baton Rouge where he led a team that conducted the Legal Orientation Program in rural Louisiana detention centers and represented detained adults in removal proceedings. Previously, he was the Georgetown Fellow at Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston where he provided services for Unaccompanied Refugee Minors, refugees, dreamers, and asylum-seekers. He is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center where he received a Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies Certificate after working with a team researching barriers children face seeking asylum in Mexico. Prior to law school, Nick taught high school English in Miami and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica.

Deborah Mas Cabrera supports KIND’s Special Programs Team as the Border Team’s staff attorney in the Rio Grande Valley since September 2021. Prior to joining KIND, Deborah was a staff attorney at American Gateways in Austin, Texas, where she represented low-income clients in a variety of matters before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the San Antonio Immigration Court, and the Board of Immigration Appeals. While there, she also led the Legal Orientation Program (LOP) team that conducted services at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center and helped to create and implement a remote legal orientation service model during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to this, she was a senior staff attorney at the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR) Children’s Project, where she represented unaccompanied minors detained across the Rio Grande Valley. She is a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Law (J.D. 2015) and the George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs (B.A. 2012). Deborah is excited to return to the Rio Grande Valley and support the safety and due process rights of immigrant children along the South Texas border.

Isis Nohemi Goldberg joins KIND’s Legal Programs Team as a Staff Attorney on the Border Team. She was raised along the Tijuana/San Diego border and obtained her J.D. Degree from American University in Washington, DC. After law school, Isis worked in Mexico City as a human rights attorney with the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights. In this role, she litigated cases of torture, feminicide, and enforced disappearance both nationally and internationally before the UN’s Universal Human Rights System and the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. In the United States, Isis has worked as an immigration attorney with children, youth, and adults at various non-profits in San Diego, CA; Seattle and Bremerton, WA; and Charleston, SC. Isis has worked with vulnerable and indigent populations from diverse backgrounds including the LGBTQ community, PLHIV, victims of crime and Domestic Violence, indigenous populations from Central America, and persons who suffer from severe mental disabilities. Isis is excited about working with other groups and persons to raise social consciousness and demand due process for the children and families who come to the United States in the pursuit of a better life.

Ximena Camargo supports the Special Programs – Tijuana, Mexico at KIND as a Staff Attorney, she joined the KIND team in July 2021. Graduated magna cum laude from Anahuac University in Cancun Mexico, currently studying a master’s degree at Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales in Human Rights and Democracy. Before joining KIND, she worked in Asylum Access Mexico, as an International Refugee Attorney representing people in need of international protection during the refugee determination process in Mexico, also she worked as a Refugee Attorney in the Jesuit Service for Migrants, giving law consults to people in need of international protection, and victims of human rights violations, al last she word as an constitutional attorney in Alma Migrante, being the managing attorney of the constitutional process concerned about human rights violations, specifically does who affected the migrant population.

Esther joined KIND in Washington, D.C. as a Staff Attorney, Special Programs - Family Separation. She is a graduate of Yale Law School and has over ten years of experience volunteering with immigrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees. During her time in law school, Esther completed internships with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She also represented clients in several clinics, including the Immigrant Rights Clinic, International Refugee Assistance Project, and Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project. As an avid linguaphile, Esther speaks Spanish, Russian, and Hungarian and is currently learning Amharic.

Ana Islas is an Interim Staff Attorney supporting the Border Team with KIND, starting in November 2022. Ana was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States at a young age. She was raised in Tucson, Arizona. There she attended the University of Arizona and doubled majored in Latin American Studies and Political Science with an emphasis of law and policy. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree, she went straight to law school at the James E. Rogers College of Law. There she participated in law clinics and internships that provided free legal services for the community. After completing law school and passing the bar she became a misdemeanor prosecutor at the City of Tucson Court, mainly focusing on DUI litigation. After a couple of months of working as a prosecutor, she learned that she is a defense attorney at heart and went to the Florence and Immigrant Refugee Rights project. There she represented unaccompanied minors who were in deportation proceedings. Later, she moved teams within the Florence Project and became a border attorney helping displaced families in the Nogales border region. In her free time, Ana loves spending time with her pup (Bambi), her partner, friends, and family. She also enjoys going on walks, going to cycling class, watching reality TV/true crime shows, and doing arts and crafts.

Kenia is passionate about human rights and social justice. Prior to joining KIND, Kenia graduated from Georgetown University with a Master's degree in Latin American Studies where she specialized in human rights, conflict resolution and gender. As a Bolivian-American, Kenia has always had an interest in advocating for the human rights of vulnerable populations in the Latin American region. She completed internships in Bolivia and Colombia where she focused on the rights of indigenous peoples and rural women. During her last semester at Georgetown University, she completed a capstone project regarding the issue of gender stipulations within the Colombian Peace Accords. Working alongside a Georgetown colleague, the Washington Office on Latin America, the Latin America Working Group, and Colombian civil-society organizations, she co-produced an advocacy report identifying priority issues and recommendations for the purpose of lobbying U.S. policymakers to support gender-inclusive conflict resolution and peace-building in Colombia. As a child of immigrant parents, Kenia is also particularly passionate about advocating for the rights of immigrant families and children, and is excited to support KIND's dedicated Special Programs team.

Coming soon.

Janaina Vargas joined KIND Mexico as a Paralegal in Tijuana in July 2021. Before joining KIND, she worked for the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas at the Community Affairs Department, overseeing educational and financial programs to serve the Mexican community. She has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Iberoamerican University in Mexico City, her dissertation researched the violation to the right to seek asylum in the United States due the externalization of borders. Janaina, during her undergraduate career joined the Refugee Law Clinic where she developed a keen interest in working with asylum seekers and refugees in Mexico. When she graduated she moved to Texas to collaborate with the Immigration Law Clinic at UT Austin, focusing on MPP cases. In the future Janaina hopes to earn a Master’s degree in International Public Law focusing in Refugee Law and Human Rights.

Emelie is originally from Sweden and has been living in Mexico for 10 years. She joined KIND as a family outreach supervisor in October of 2021. Emelie is a specialist in human rights, migration in Central America, Mexico and the United States, legal assistance for victims of crime, asylum- seekers and refugees and vulnerable groups including women, unaccompanied minors and LGBTQ persons. She also specializes in professional training and evaluation and has many years of experience managing multi-lingual teams from different cultures. Prior to joining KIND, Emelie was part of the protection team at IOM Ciudad Juarez and the human rights coordinator at La 72 Shelter for Migrants and Refugees. Emelie lives and works remotely in Ciudad Juarez with her partner and their son.

Georgina Ramos supports the Social Services Department at KIND in Tijuana, Mexico, since June, 2021. Has been working with Non Profits for more than 17 years. Right out of High School, she lived one year as a volunteer at a Women’s Shelter near Mexico City. She coordinated the Information and Communication Technologies Department of Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes Mexico for almost 11 years, where she specialized in Networking in the Central and North American Region to provide services to migrants and their families and refer them as required; design and implemmentation of Psycho-educational Programs in Veracruz, Puebla and Mexico City; of Data Bases to register Human Rights Violations and Missing Migrants; accompany students and volunteers from Mexican and US Universities, among others. Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Library Science and has studies from the Master’s Program in Education from Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico City and she is honored of putting her knowledge and experience into service of vulnerable Migrant Children.