A claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) enables recovery of money from the United States for abuse and misconduct by employees of federal agencies, including immigration officers. In this webinar, we will explain how to file an administrative claim with immigration agencies under the FTCA to both compensate victims and hold rogue immigration officers accountable.
Presenters
Erin Quinn, Senior Staff Attorney - ILRC
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.
Trina Realmuto, Executive Director - NILA
Trina Realmuto is the Executive Director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance. With over twenty years of experience in immigration, damages, and transparency litigation in federal courts, Trina has litigated and argued several precedent decisions on behalf of individuals, classes, and amicus curiae, written numerous practice advisories, and is a frequent presenter on immigration issues. Most recently, Trina was a Directing Attorney of Litigation at the American Immigration Council. Prior to that, she served as the Litigation Director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild and as a consulting attorney to the Council. In addition, she has worked abroad representing noncitizens applying for visas at U.S. embassies and consulates. Trina began her career as an associate attorney at Van Der Hout LLC, a San Francisco-based immigration firm where she specialized in federal court litigation and deportation defense. In 2015, Trina was awarded the Jack Wasserman Memorial Award for Excellence in Litigation by the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Mary Kenney, Deputy Director - NILA
Mary Kenney is the Deputy Director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance. For twenty-five years, Mary has worked to protect the rights of noncitizens, combat abusive conduct by immigration agents, and overturn unlawful policies of the immigration agencies. From 2003 to 2020, Mary was with the American Immigration Council, most recently as Directing Attorney of Litigation, where she engaged in impact litigation and authored numerous practice advisories. Prior to joining the Council, Mary was the Executive Director of a statewide immigrant and refugee rights litigation project in Texas. In that role, she oversaw impact litigation, including several class actions, and advocacy efforts. She also worked as a legal services attorney in West Virginia. In 2014, Mary was awarded the Carol King Award by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild for her impact litigation work. In 2021, the American Immigration Lawyers Association awarded Mary the Jack Wasserman Memorial Award for Excellence in Litigation.