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Welcome and Farewell: Winter Staff and Board Transitions
Posted on Jan 16 2019
As we begin 2019, we welcome new staff and newly-elected board officers, and say farewell to two staff members who are moving on. Among the moves in ILCM over the winter: Julia Decker and Salma Ahmed will leave ILCM in January, and Tim Sanders Szabo, Stacey Brake, and Maggiy Emery joined the team.
New officers were elected to the board of directors in January: President – Irma Marquez Trapero; Vice-President – Maya Salah; Treasurer – Grant Ostler; Secretary – Kate Wasylik.
Stacey Brake joined ILCM as a staff attorney with her husky, Deems, who has quickly become quite a busy and popular new team member. With a background in criminal defense, Stacey finds ILCM an energizing organization doing vital work. Years ago, at a Catholic Worker house on Chicago’s South Side, she learned how to teach yoga through the originality and integrity of the kids she befriended there. She studied Sociology and Spanish at the University of San Diego which also presented opportunities for exploring how positive change and progress can happen. She attended law school at Saint Louis University, in her home state of Missouri, and served as public defender immediately following her graduation.
Maggiy Emery joined ILCM as a development associate in 2018 after several years working in finance and campaign fundraising, including positions with former Minneapolis city council member Gary Schiff, Minnesota’s second Congressional district Representative Angie Craig, and Minnesota’s first Congressional district candidate Dan Feehan. She also spent time as a program officer with The Open Door, working to provide food security in the south suburbs of the Twin Cities.
Tim Sanders Szabo graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 2018. While in law school, he was a student attorney and then a student director in the Federal Immigration Litigation Clinic where he represented clients in Immigration Court, before the Board of Immigration Appeals, and argued cases at the U.S. District Court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. As the recipient of an Equal Justice Works Fellowship sponsored by 3M and Faegre Baker Daniels. Tim focuses on establishing medical-legal partnerships with clinics in North and South Dakota, working with ILCM attorneys, staff, and pro bono counsel to increase access to legal assistance for underserved non-citizens in those areas.
Salma Ahmed has helped many, many people who otherwise likely would not have secured legal representation to gain green cards, citizenship, work authorization, travel documents, and other legal relief. Each of these people has found, through Salma’s work, their way to greater security as residents or citizens of the United States. She also has reached many refugees and others at locations most convenient and comfortable to them and their families, and has provided a place for people to safely and confidently seek information and assistance. The ripple effect of Salma’s work is immeasurable and surely will persist.
Julia Decker’s advocacy, primarily for clients at risk of deportation, has made immeasurable difference in their lives and the lives of their families. Logging hundreds of miles driving to detention centers and immigration hearings, she has been the lifeline for people in danger of being separated from their families, communities, jobs, homes, and country. She has unflaggingly represented her clients even in those cases when it seemed futile. Whether her clients won in court or not, and no matter how isolated they were, they knew that they were important enough for her to spend time and energy fighting for them.