2012

Christina Fialho ’06, J.D. ’12 and her colleague Christina Mansfield were named 2012 Echoing Green Fellows for Social Change. Echoing Green provides more than $2 million in seed support social entrepreneurs from around the world every year.

The pair will launch a new project — Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC) — with support from Echoing Green for the first two years. CIVIC is a national network of immigration detention visitation groups, with a mission to end the isolation and abuse of persons in immigration detention by building and strengthening community visitation programs across the U.S. They will provide support to current visitation groups, resources and training to new groups, and a communication platform for all visitation groups.

Fialho, a social activist for immigrant rights and the daughter of an immigrant, has assisted in defending immigrants from detention and deportation before the U.S. Immigration Courts and has argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She currently serves on the steering committee of the Detention Watch Network, and her scholarly publications focus on the intersection of immigration law, constitutional law, and international human rights. Prior to starting CIVIC, she co-founded the first immigration detention visitation program in California.

30 Oct 2018