Executive Director
Program Assistant
Asylum Program
Detention Program
AILA/ PAIR/ Immigration Court Program

 

 

Executive Director

Sarah Ignatius, Esq., is the Executive Director of the PAIR Project. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center where she was Articles Editor for the Journal of Law and Policy in International Business; and her B.A., with Distinction & Honors, from Stanford University. Sarah serves as Steering Committee Chair of the National Immigrant Bond Fund. She lectured on immigration law for ten years as an Adjunct at Boston College Law School. She co-authored the comprehensive book Immigration Law and the Family (Thomson West); and authored: “Restricting the Rights of Asylum-Seekers: The New Legislative and Administrative Proposals,” 7 Harvard Human Rights Journal 225 (1994); “Haitian Asylum-Seekers” 7 Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 119 (1993); “Asylum: Country-Wide Persecution”; 21 Immigration Newsletter 1, National Immigration Project (1993) and numerous other articles. In 1993, Sarah was the principal researcher and author of An Assessment of the Asylum Process of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (1993), a nationwide study of the Asylum Officer program, conducted through Harvard Law School and funded by the Ford Foundation. Previously, she worked as Executive Director & Legal Director of Northwest Immigrants Rights Project in Seattle; associate at Wickwire, Goldmark & Schorr in Seattle; Staff Attorney at the Seattle-King County Public Defender; and Law Clerk for the Honorable William C. Pryor, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Washington, D.C. She joined PAIR in 1993.

Contact: signatius@pairproject.org; (617) 742-9296 ext. 5

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Program Assistant

Rea Mae Gacad is the Program Assistant at the PAIR Project, and also collaborates on the Asylum and Detention Programs. Rea Mae received her B.A. in Sociology, with a minor in Hispanic Studies, from Boston College. She has also studied at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. She has volunteered with Gawad Kalinga in the Philippines; Iskwelehang Pilipino in Bedford, Massachusetts; the Center for International Programs and Partnerships at BC; and the Footprints Guild in California, where she worked with refugee and immigrant communities. She joined PAIR in 2006. Rea Mae speaks conversational Spanish.

Contact: rmgacad@pairproject.org; (617) 742-9296 ext. 6

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Asylum Program

Anita P. Sharma, Esq., is the Asylum Attorney at the PAIR Project. Anita received her LL.M. in International Legal Studies from American University Law School, concentrating in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. She earned her J.D., cum laude, from Suffolk University Law School and graduated with distinction in the Intellectual Property and High Technology Law concentration. She received her B.A., summa cum laude, in English Literature from Suffolk University. Anita is currently an adjunct professor of English at Suffolk University. She was selected for the 2008-09 Boston Bar Association Public Interest Leadership Program. She is also an advisory council member of Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG), a member of South Asians for Progressive Action (SAPA), and Council Member of the Massachusetts Bar Association Immigration Law Section. In addition, Anita serves as co-chair of the Liaison Committee on Asylum for the New England Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Anita received the Boston Bar Association's John G. Brooks Public Service Award in 2006 for her outstanding representation of asylum-seekers and for serving as a mentor to hundreds of pro bono lawyers who represent PAIR clients. She previously worked at WARLAW, a Delhi-based NGO that focuses on women’s rights in India. Anita joined PAIR in 2002.

Contact: asharma@pairproject.org; (617) 742-9296 ext. 2

Marie Handfield is the Asylum Program Assistant at the PAIR Project. She is currently a second year student at Boston University School of Law where she serves as the 2L representative of the Public Service Committee and the president of the Human Rights Law Society. She spent her summer working for PAIR and was selected as the Goodwin Proctor Fellow by the Public Interest Project at BU. She received her B.A., with distinction, from the University of Michigan, concentrating in Philosophy and Latin American Studies. Marie joined PAIR in 2008. She speaks conversational Spanish.

Contact: mhandfield@pairproject.org; (617) 742-9296 ext. *

Medha Devanagondi, Esq., is the Yale Public Interest Fellow focusing on the representation of women who have escaped gender-based violence, torture, and other severe trauma. Medha received her J.D. from the Yale Law School, where she served as a Student Director of the Immigration Legal Services clinic; represented female immigrants in the Domestic Violence Clinic; and volunteered with the Refugee Protection Program of Human Rights First in Washington, D.C. Medha earned her A.B. in Human Biology and Middle East Studies from Brown University. She has a nine-month fellowship placement at PAIR, which began in 2008.

Contact: mdevanagondi@pairproject.org; (617) 742-9296 ext. 8

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Detention Program

Heather J. Friedman, Esq., is the Detention Attorney at the PAIR Project. Heather received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School where she focused on human rights, immigration, and environmental law. She received her A.B., magna cum laude, in Russian History and Literature from Harvard College. Prior to joining PAIR, Heather practiced immigration law at Graves & Doyle in Boston; volunteered with the asylum project at the International Institute in Boston; served as Associate Director of Yale Law School’s Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights; and was a Fellow at Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, a San Francisco firm specializing in environmental and land use law. She joined PAIR in 2008. Heather speaks Spanish and French.

Contact: hfriedman@pairproject.org; (617) 742-9296 ext. 4

Andrea A. Saenz, Esq., is the Equal Justice Works Fellow at the PAIR Project. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where she was Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Record. She won the 2007 ABA Law Student Division Award for Best Editorial for her column on the New Bedford immigration raid, and also won Best Oralist at the 2007 NYU Immigration Law Moot Court Competition. She received her B.A., cum laude, in English from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to law school, Andrea taught high school English as a Second Language in Houston, Texas. She joined PAIR in 2008. Andrea speaks conversational Spanish.

Contact: asaenz@pairproject.org; (617) 742-9296 ext. 7

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AILA/ PAIR/ Immigration Court Program

Antonio P. Castro Aranda coordinates the Immigration Court Program at the PAIR Project, in collaboration with the Boston Immigration Court and the New England Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). In this role, he manages KYRs for AILA attorneys; the necessary follow-up with clients; and the pro bono representation for bond and merits hearings. Antonio also works significantly on the Detention Program through additional KYRs at other immigration detention centers throughout New England; PAIR intake from detainees and their family members; and Raids Response and KYRs in the community. Antonio received his law degree from the UNED Law School in Madrid, Spain. Previously, he worked at the International Institute of Boston as the Managing Paralegal of its Immigration Clinic and as a volunteer for its asylum program. He has worked for a number of years as an immigration law paralegal at private law offices and as a volunteer mediator at the Brookline District Court, through the Harvard Mediation Program at Harvard Law School. He joined PAIR in 2007. Antonio is fluent in Spanish.

Contact: acaranda@pairproject.org; (617) 742-9296 ext. 1

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