Camille J. Mackler, Esq. is Director of Legal Initiatives at the New York Immigration Coalition. In that role, Camille leads advocacy campaigns to improve resources available to support legal services, and advocates supports nonprofit immigration legal service providers by leading and more just laws and policies to benefit all immigrants, amongst and as well as . Most recently, she coordinated legal efforts at JFK airport during the travel ban targeting refugees and citizens of seven countries. She has successfully advocated for better protections for immigrants seeking legal assistance including helping pass a 2014 New York State law that was deemed one of the strongest consumer protection laws in the country that year, creating and chairing the Protecting Immigrant New Yorkers (PINY) Task Force since 2014, and pushing for the creation of immigrant concerns-specific units in 5 District Attorney offices so far. Nationally, Ms. Mackler helped get Nepal designated for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in 2015 and Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia re-designated in 2016. Since early 2017 she has spearheaded the creation of a legal service provider collaborative that includes nearly 60 organizational members so far who will pool expertise and resources to protect immigrants in the face of harsher penalties.
Ms. Mackler has also been very active in efforts to end family detention. She has volunteered at the Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas and has supported the team at the center in Berks County, Pennsylvania. She remains involved in both efforts remotely from New York. In late 2016, she was part of a team of attorneys who launched Voices In Action in America (VIAA) a grassroots refugee resettlement effort that aims to support Central American refugee mothers and children as they arrive in New York, and help them add their voices to the national debate on immigration. She is an immigration attorney with over ten years of experience representing immigrants before US Immigration Courts and Federal Courts of Appeals and a frequent lecturer on immigration laws and policies. Prior to joining the NYIC, Ms. Mackler was in private practice and focused primarily on asylum and refugee, deportation proceedings, immigration detention, and family-based immigration issues.
Ms. Mackler has a Juris Doctorate from New York Law School and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. She currently serves as the co-chair of the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Immigration Representation, and on the American Immigration Lawyers Association committees on Consumer Protection and Unauthorized Practice of Law (national) and Media & Advocacy (New York Chapter).
Professor Sarah Rogerson Directs the Immigration Law Clinic at Albany Law School, an
experiential course through which students represent immigrant victims of crime
including child abuse and neglect, domestic violence and sexual assault. Her
students also regularly participate in related legislative advocacy and
community outreach initiatives. Professor Rogerson worked as a public interest
attorney in Newark, New Jersey and has represented immigrant adults and
children in cases involving torture, domestic violence, and human trafficking
at a human rights non-profit in Dallas, Texas. Her scholarship is focused on
the intersections between domestic violence, family law, race, gender,
international law and immigration law and policy.
