Carolina Castaneda joined the ILRC in February of 2023. After ten years in private practice, seven of those running her own immigration firm in Merced, California, Carolina brings extensive practical experience to the ILRC. She has represented detained and non-detained individuals in removal proceedings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review. She also has ample experience filing and representing clients before USCIS with cases spanning from the areas of DACA, advance parole, naturalization, SIJS, U visas, family-based adjustment of status, and consular processing. Carolina has also represented clients before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Prior to joining the ILRC, Carolina worked at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), where she represented clients in removal proceedings and provided trainings to attorneys and staff. As an immigrant and Central Vally resident, Carolina strives to use her legal education and experience to positively impact, strengthen, and extend legal capacity in underserved immigrant communities.
Carolina received her J.D. from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Irvine, where she majored in Criminology, Law, and Society. Carolina is admitted to the State Bar of California and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She is fluent in Spanish.
Cori Hash - Senior Staff Attorney, Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Cori Hash joined the ILRC as a Senior Staff Attorney in 2024 and is based in Austin, Texas. She came to the ILRC after nearly two decades working in the field of immigrant rights and immigration law.
Cori was most recently in private practice at Lincoln-Goldfinch Law firm, a boutique law firm in Austin, TX specializing in immigration law. Prior to Lincoln-Goldfinch Law, Cori was the Managing Attorney of the Washington, D.C. office of Human Rights First where she oversaw the pro bono legal representation of indigent asylum seekers by staff and volunteer lawyers in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
Cori began her legal career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, creating a project to address the unmet legal needs of the growing immigrant and refugee communities in Central and Eastern Kentucky. She also taught immigration law courses at the University of Kentucky College of Law. Prior to law school, Cori served as a volunteer in the United States Peace Corps in Zimbabwe.
Cori has a bachelor's degree in Latin American Studies and Plan II Honors from the University of Texas and a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law. She is a member of the bars in Texas, Kentucky and Virginia, and is admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She is fluent in Spanish.
Erin Quinn - Senior Managing Attorney, Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Erin Quinn is an attorney based in San Francisco. Her work focuses on building capacity of organizations and practitioners to assist immigrants. She conducts trainings on immigration law throughout the United States and provides legal expertise through the ILRC’s Attorney of the Day program. Erin has contributed to numerous ILRC publications as author or editor, including Removal Defense: Defending Immigrants in Immigration Court; Essentials of Asylum and many others. In addition, Erin works on issues related to immigration status and healthcare as well as consumer protection. She has published articles with LexisNexis Emerging Issues and American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).
Prior to coming to the ILRC, Erin represented immigrants in all aspects of their immigration matters, with an emphasis on removal defense and complex cases. She was owner and attorney at her own firm for 5 years after defending immigrants as an associate at the Law Office of Robert B. Jobe. Her experience in immigration law and policy includes working as a fellow for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, EU headquarters in Belgium; clerking for the Immigration Court of San Francisco; and teaching courses as a lecturer at California State University, East Bay. Erin is on the Advisory Council for the Northern California Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), in which she serves as Consumer Protection Coordinator.
Erin holds a joint degree in law and public policy (JD/MPP) from the University of Michigan, where she was co-editor of Michigan Journal of Gender & Law. She received her undergraduate degree from University of California, Los Angeles, where she majored in English and Anthropology. She is a member of the California Bar and proficient in Spanish.