Fall Daynard Lecture: Linda Rivas, Executive Director and Managing Attorney, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center

Border Cruelty: A Day to Day Look at Immigration Law on the Border

Fall 2021 Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow
LINDA RIVAS
Executive Director and Managing Attorney, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center

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This is a hybrid event. Registration is required and in-person attendance is limited to Northeastern students, faculty and staff.

For details, please visit law.northeastern.edu/news-events/daynard.

Linda Y. Rivas is executive director and managing attorney of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, a 34-year-old organization dedicated to the legal needs of low-income migrants, including assisting asylum seekers and those in need of family reunification as well as advocating for the dignity and rights of all migrants. During the Trump administration, Rivas represented and led efforts to reunite families who were separated as a result of the “Zero-Tolerance” immigration policy and the “Remain in Mexico” policy. Recently, Rivas has advocated to end Title 42 expulsions at the border.

Rivas is also the co-founder of the Borderland Immigration Council (BIC), a local Texas group of attorneys, activists and advocacy groups formed to help address the dire situation of due process abuses, family separation and abuse of discretion that immigrants and refugees face during the course of their legal immigration cases.

Rivas was born in Mexico and raised in El Paso, Texas, from the age of 4. She attended The University of Texas at El Paso and completed her studies with a bachelor of arts in psychology with a minor in legal reasoning. She earned her JD at Loyola College of Law in New Orleans. During law school, Rivas clerked with the US Department of Justice, Executive Office of Immigration Review. At the beginning of her career, Rivas advocated for children in the child welfare system as an attorney ad-litem. She went on to become the West Texas VAWA (Violence Against Women’s Act) manager for the Texas Civil Rights Project in El Paso.

Rivas’ work is often featured in The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, The Texas Tribune and The New York Times.