Criminal Sentences and Immigration

Kathy Brady is a Staff Attorney based in San Francisco. She has worked with the ILRC since 1987. Along with expertise in family immigration, immigrant children and youth, and removal defense, she is a national expert on the intersection of immigration and criminal law. She is a frequent speaker and consultant, and has co-authored several manuals including Defending Immigrants in the Ninth Circuit (ILRC), California Criminal Defense of Immigrants (CEB), the chapter on representing immigrants in California Criminal Law – Procedure and Practice (CEB), and Immigration Benchbook for Juvenile and Family Courts (ILRC). She helped found coalitions and projects to address these issues, including as a co-founder of the Defending Immigrants Partnership and the Immigrant Justice Network. Kathy served as a Commissioner to the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration from 2009-2012. In 2007 she received the Carol King award of advocacy from the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

Before working at the ILRC Kathy was in private practice in immigration law with Park & Associates in San Francisco.

Kathy attended Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley School of Law, and has taught immigration law as an adjunct professor. She is a member of the California Bar and is conversant in Spanish.

Carla Gomez is a Senior Staff Attorney in San Francisco where she focuses on the intersection of criminal and immigration law, including post-conviction relief. Carla has over 20 years of criminal defense experience as both a federal and county public defender and has extensive experience as an immigration defense attorney.

Prior to coming to the ILRC, Carla started her career as a Federal Public Defender in San Diego where she tried over 15 federal felony trials, argued several times before the Ninth Circuit resulting in published opinions including U.S. v. Ramirez, 273 F.3d 903, (9th Cir. 2001). Carla then became a San Francisco Public Defender where she practiced for over 15 years as a felony attorney, and, in 2017, she was part of the team that spearheaded the Immigration Unit.

Carla has successfully defended the most challenging cases in immigration court where her clients with serious felonies have won asylum, withholding, the Convention Against Torture and readjustment of status. Her successful post-conviction relief practice throughout California including Monterey, San Mateo, San Joaquin, Sonoma, Kern, Fresno, Sacramento, and Pasadena has saved lawful permanent residents with aggravated felonies from deportation and allowed immigrants to adjust their status.

Carla earned her undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley and her J.D. from the University of San Francisco where she participated in the United Nations Working Group on Migrant Farm Workers in Geneva. Carla is fluent in Spanish and conversant in French.