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Date and Time:
04/18/2024 11:00am to 12:30pm PDT
Recorded Date:
04/18/2024
Place:
Online
Registration Deadline:
Thursday, April 18, 2024 - 11:00am
MCLE:
1.5 CA & TX
Recording, $125.00
Level: Intermediate

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is an important form of protection and there has been a significant increase in the number of TPS designated countries in recent years. This webinar will explore the bars to TPS, including certain criminal grounds, persecution, national security, and firm resettlement. The webinar will further discuss how to strategize and protect your client when they may be subject to a bar, both at initial registration and re-registration.

Presenters

Kate Mahoney, Senior Staff Attorney - ILRC

Kate joined the ILRC as a Senior Staff Attorney in 2023 after over a decade of experience fighting deportation in a variety of roles.  Kate believes that the movement for immigrants’ liberation must be led by those most impacted, and she is humbled and constantly learning from the courageous clients and advocates whom she supports.  Kate specializes in complex removal defense on behalf of detained and non-detained clients, including challenging removability, motions to suppress, applications for relief before USCIS and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and federal court litigation and appeals. Kate previously served as Legal Program Director at Dolores Street Community Services in San Francisco, where she worked closely with community partners in the Bay Area to coordinate and expand legal services for local residents facing deportation and immigration detention.  In addition to direct representation, Kate also previously served as the Court-Appointed Special Monitor in Franco Gonzalez v. Holder, Case No. 10-2211 (C.D. Cal. 2010), and as a law clerk to the Honorable Dolly M. Gee in the Central District of California and at the San Francisco Immigration Court.Kate received her law degree from U.C. Hastings College of the Law and holds a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University. She is admitted to practice in California, immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Northern District of California, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  She speaks Spanish and English.

Merle Kahn, Consulting Attorney - ILRC

Merle Kahn has been exclusively practicing immigration law for over thirty years. She has vast experience in removal defense, federal appeals, the immigration consequences of crimes, family immigration, naturalization, and humanitarian immigration such as asylum, VAWA and U visas. She provides technical assistance through the ILRC’s Attorney of the Day program mentoring and assisting public defenders, criminal defense attorneys, and nonprofit attorneys and staff with a vast array of immigration law and questions.

Since joining the ILRC as a consultant in 2023, she has contributed to several ILRC manuals including, Essentials of Asylum Law, Temporary Protected Status: Practice and Strategies, Removal Defense: Defending Immigrants in Immigration Court, and California Judges Benchbook: Domestic Violence Cases. (Helen, can you please check the name?). She has authored practice advisories, presented webinars, led the ILRC 40 hour basic immigration law training, and has served as a panelist on a number of issues for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).

Prior to joining the ILRC she was Of Counsel at Daniel Shanfield – Immigration Defense, PC, which she represented clients before USCIS, ICE, EOIR, and the Ninth Circuit. She is the creator and writer of Top of the Ninth, a blog about important Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit, and Board of Immigration Appeals immigration cases. She founded and directed a pro bono legal clinic for refugees and asylees through Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley (JFS) and AILA. In 2016 Merle was named an AILA Pro Bono Champion. Before entering the field of immigration law, Merle was a prosecutor for the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission for the Supreme Court of Illinois.

Merle earned her law degree from The George Washington University in Washington D.C. and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois where she majored in English and American Literature. Merle is admitted to the California Bar.