Hon. Dana Leigh Marks (Ret.)

Judge Dana Leigh Marks is one of the most outspoken and renowned attorneys to have served as an Immigration Judge (IJ). Prior to her judicial appointment, she achieved notoriety as an attorney, successfully arguing a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case at just thirty-two years old. Over more than twenty-one years of service as an IJ, Judge Marks left an indelible mark on the field of immigration law.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Judge Marks earned her B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974, and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1977, at the age of twenty-three. Following her second year of law school, she clerked for Stiller & Nervo, a small immigration firm in San Francisco, where she developed her passion for immigration law. She returned to the firm as an associate after graduation, and, in 1978, joined another firm, Simmons & Ungar. Judge Marks thrived there, becoming heavily involved in the local chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and eventually making Partner.

While at Simmons & Ungar, Judge Marks served as lead counsel in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, a landmark asylum case before the United States Supreme Court. The decision established that asylum applicants need only demonstrate a “well-founded fear” of future persecution, rather than the stricter “more likely than not” standard advocated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). This ruling significantly broadened access to asylum protections in the United States.

In 1987, Judge Marks became the first IJ selected from outside the INS. Since 1999, she has served fourteen years as President, and another four as Vice President, of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), the recognized collective bargaining unit for IJs nationwide. In that role, she focused the NAIJ on immigration court reform, advocating for structural improvements and increased resources for the court system.

Judge Marks’s many honors include the Phillip Burton Immigration and Civil Rights Award for Immigration Policy (1999) and recognition for Leadership in the Human Struggle from the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (2006). She retired from the bench in December 2021.

Today, Judge Marks remains a prominent voice on the state of immigration law and the court system. She was recently interviewed by The San Francisco Standard and will appear virtually as the Keynote Speaker for the Kentucky Law Journal’s Fall Symposium.

Daniel A. Galindo

Daniel A. Galindo is Senior Staff Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrants’ Rights Project, based in New York City, a position he has held since 2018. Throughout his career, he has advocated for the rights and fair treatment of immigrants in the United States and continues to represent plaintiffs in ongoing immigration litigation.

Prior to joining the Immigrants’ Rights Project, Mr. Galindo served as a public defender with the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. He earned his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2012 and subsequently clerked for the Honorable David O. Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and the Honorable Kermit V. Lipez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He also holds a B.A. in History from Cornell University.

The ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project works to expand and defend the civil rights and liberties of immigrants while challenging discrimination directed against them. In his role, Mr. Galindo engages in litigation concerning immigrants’ rights in federal and state courts. He has served as counsel on many immigrants’ rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and D.C. Circuits, and various district and state courts across the country. His experience includes serving as amicus counsel of record in Department of State v. Muñoz, which addressed the constitutional interests of a U.S. citizen whose spouse was denied a visa, and as class counsel in P.J.E.S. by & through Escobar Francisco v. Wolf, which resulted in a preliminary injunction against a policy blocking unaccompanied minors’ access to asylum before the government later withdrew the policy.

As an experienced advocate for immigrants’ rights, Mr. Galindo will be speaking on the Kentucky Law Journal’s Litigation Perspectives on Immigrant Justice panel, where he will discuss his litigation experience and ongoing work advancing the rights of immigrants.

Prof. Neil Weare

Prof. Neil Weare is a civil rights attorney, educator, and nonprofit leader dedicated to advancing democracy, equity, and self-determination in the U.S. territories. Raised in Guam, he is the Co-founder and Co-Director of Right to Democracy, a project that challenges the colonial framework established by the Insular Cases through participatory advocacy, narrative change, and coalition building.

Before attending law school, Prof. Weare held several key positions within Guam’s political system, including a Policy Advisor to Majority Leader Lou Leon Guerrero of the Guam Legislature and later Press Secretary to Guam’s non-voting Delegate to Congress, Madeleine Bordallo.

A graduate of Yale Law School, Prof. Weare began his legal career as a Thomas Emerson Fellow at David Rosen & Associates and later as Litigation Counsel and Supreme Court Fellow at the Constitutional Accountability Center. He clerked for the Honorable Morgan Christen on the Alaska Supreme Court, who now serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has also worked as an associate attorney at the law firms of Trister, Ross, Schadler & Gold, PLLC, and Loeb & Loeb LLP, and has taught as a Visiting Lecturer in Law at both Yale and Columbia Law Schools. Prof. Weare is also the co-author of the forthcoming casebook The Law of U.S. Territories.

For ten years, Prof. Weare served as President and Founder of Equally American, a nonprofit that, like Right to Democracy, advocates for the equal rights of residents of the U.S. territories. His litigation experience reflects his deep commitment to this cause. Prof. Weare successfully argued CCJEF v. Rell before the Connecticut Supreme Court, which recognized a constitutional right to adequate education for Connecticut schoolchildren, and litigated landmark cases challenging the validity of the Insular Cases such as Fitisemanu v. United States and Tuaua v. United States.

Prof. Weare will appear virtually on the Kentucky Law Journal’s Birthright Citizenship in U.S. Territories panel to discuss his career and the goals of Right to Democracy.

Charles V. Ala’ilima

Charles V. Ala’ilima is an American Samoan attorney with decades of experience in public service and private practice. Born in American Samoa, he was recognized as a birthright U.S. citizen at the New Zealand Embassy thanks to his mother’s U.S. citizenship status. He has practiced law for over forty years and has demonstrated his dedication to his homeland through his long-standing efforts to overturn the Insular Cases and the colonial framework that endures in the U.S. territories.

Mr. Ala’ilima began his career as an Assistant Attorney General in American Samoa. He was later appointed a District Court Judge and eventually became the first Samoan Acting Associate Justice of the High Court of American Samoa. In 1984, he entered private practice, handling cases primarily before the Lands and Titles Court and the Appellate Division involving issues of land ownership and chief title selections. He earned his J.D. from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa’s Richardson School of Law and has been licensed to practice law in Washington State since 1998. His U.S. practice, the Law Office of Charles V. Ala’ilima, PLLC, is located on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

A committed advocate for the rights of residents in the U.S. territories, Mr. Ala’ilima has been an outspoken voice on the constitutionality of birthright citizenship for American Samoans. In 2022, he represented plaintiff John Fitisemanu regarding a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking reconsideration of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit’s ruling in Fitisemanu v. United States. That decision applied the territorial incorporation doctrine from the Insular Cases to hold that individuals born in American Samoa are not birthright citizens of the United States under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The petition was denied.

Mr. Ala’ilima continues to advocate for this cause by serving on the Board of Directors of Right to Democracy, a project dedicated to dismantling the colonial framework governing the U.S. territories and overturning the Insular Cases. He will discuss his legal advocacy on this issue by appearing virtually on the Kentucky Law Journal’s Birthright Citizenship in U.S. Territories panel.

Dr. Richard T. Middleton IV

Dr. Richard T. Middleton IV is a tenured Full Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and an Adjunct Professor of Law at both Saint Louis University School of Law and the University of Missouri School of Law. His research and teaching explore the intersection of race and ethnicity within the context of shifting political power, racial politics, and public administration.

A distinguished scholar, Dr. Middleton is the author of books, journal articles, and book chapters, including Unmastering the Script: Education, Critical Race Theory, and the Struggle to Reconcile the Haitian Other in Dominican Identity (2019), co-authored with Dr. Sheridan Wigginton. His work has been published in several respected journals such as Political Research Quarterly, Rutgers Race and the Law Review, and the Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies. He holds a J.D. from Saint Louis University School of Law and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri–Columbia.

In addition to his academic work, Dr. Middleton maintains a solo law practice focused on immigration law and the defense of minor criminal charges. He is deeply engaged in pro bono legal service, volunteering with the Migrant and Immigrant Community Action (MICA) Project in St. Louis and providing legal consultations through the Latino Outreach Project of Crisis Nursery. He has also volunteered for the Immigration Law Project of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, where his contributions have included drafting motions for the Executive Office of Immigration Review, conducting research on complex immigration issues, preparing client petitions, and developing Continuing Legal Education (CLE) materials.

Dr. Middleton will appear virtually alongside his co-author, Dr. Sheridan Wigginton, on the Kentucky Law Journal’s Crimmigration panel, where he will expand on his research of the Immigration and Nationality Act  § 287(g)’s authorization of ICE detainers and how they affect the practice of Crimmigration law.

Dr. Sheridan Wigginton

Dr. Sheridan Wigginton is a Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at California Lutheran University, where she chaired the Department of Languages and Cultures from 2011 to 2018. She currently teaches courses ranging from elementary Spanish to advanced seminars on Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. She earned her B.A. from Eastern Kentucky University and an M.A. in Spanish with an emphasis in Applied Linguistics and a Ph.D. in Foreign Language Curriculum and Instruction, both from the University of Missouri.

Elected as Humanities Senator to the California Lutheran Faculty Senate in 2022, Dr. Wigginton served on the Executive Committee as Vice-Chair for the 2023–2024 academic year. Since 2014, she has served as President of the Afro-Latin/American Research Association and has actively contributed to faculty diversity initiatives, including the development of the Equity Advocates role in the faculty search process.

Furthermore, Dr. Wigginton is the co-author, with Dr. Richard T. Middleton IV, of the book Unmastering the Script: Education, Critical Race Theory, and the Struggle to Reconcile the Haitian Other in Dominican Identity (2019). Her research includes fellowships at the Antiana and Caribana Collection at the University of Curaçao and the City University of New York Dominican Studies Institute, where she examined representations of Dominicans and Dominican culture in university-level Spanish textbooks.

Dr. Wigginton will appear virtually on the Kentucky Law Journal’s Crimmigration panel, where she will provide a broader contextual lens on the topic through her collaborative research with Dr. Middleton.  

Prof. Christopher Kozoll

Professor Christopher Kozoll is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law and the Director of the university’s Immigration Clinic. He has nearly twenty years of experience as both an immigration advocate and judge. Fluent in Spanish and licensed to practice law in Colorado and Kentucky, Professor Kozoll offers both national and local perspectives on immigration law and policy.

Before joining the Brandeis faculty in 2024, Professor Kozoll served as an Immigration Judge with the U.S. Department of Justice in Memphis, Tennessee, where he adjudicated hundreds of removal cases and asylum claims. Prior to his appointment, he was senior partner at Kozoll & Associates Immigration Law in Louisville. A longtime member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, he has represented clients in complex asylum, human trafficking, Convention Against Torture, and employment-based immigration matters, as well as in federal appellate litigation. His scholarship centers on human rights, removal defense, and the ethics of representation in high-stakes proceedings.

In addition to his national experience, Professor Kozoll has developed a deep understanding of Kentucky’s unique legal landscape and its intersection with immigration policy. As a panelist on the Kentucky Law Journal’s Navigating Immigration in Kentucky panel, he will discuss how state and local practices shape immigrant communities’ access to justice, with particular attention to the evolving role of sanctuary laws, the limits of state authority, and the challenges attorneys face in navigating these overlapping frameworks.

Prof. Anthony Ciolli

Professor Anthony Ciolli serves as Senior Law Clerk and Special Assistant to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a position he has held since 2011. In this role, he provides appellate support, optimizes judicial efficiency, and contributes to the analysis and development of policy initiatives.

Professor Ciolli’s academic credentials reflect broad interdisciplinary training. He earned his B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University in just two years, followed by an M.A. in Sociology from Queens College. He later earned both his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an M.B.E. in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He also holds an A.L.M. from Harvard University and an Executive LL.M. in Taxation from New York University.

In addition to his judicial service, Professor Ciolli is engaged in legal education and scholarship. Since 2021, he has served as an Adjunct Professor at St. Mary’s University School of Law, developing and teaching courses such as Advanced Constitutional Law and State & Territorial Legal Institutions. His research focuses on the intersection of constitutional doctrine and territorial status, with publications including Territorial Paternalism (2022) and Judicial Antifederalism (2023).

Through both scholarship and service, Professor Ciolli brings a deep engagement with the constitutional, institutional, and human-rights dimensions of territory-based law. His expertise is especially relevant when discussing inequalities of legal status and the liminal nature of constitutional protections. He will expand on this work as a panelist on the Kentucky Law Journal’s Birthright Citizenship in U.S. Territories panel.

Prof. Matthew Boaz

Professor Matthew Boaz is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law, where he teaches Torts, Immigration Law, and a seminar on Crimmigration. He has built his career advocating for immigrant rights, representing individuals in immigration detention before local courts, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Professor Boaz earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, with a certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies, and his B.A. in Political Science from Texas Christian University. He began his legal career as an Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow, placed with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Newark, New Jersey. He remained with AFSC as a Staff Detention Attorney and later as a Senior Detention Attorney, where he represented more than 100 individuals in removal proceedings.

Later, Professor Boaz joined Washington & Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia, where he served as a Professor of Practice and Acting Director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic. In that role, he supervised law students representing noncitizens in immigration proceedings. He remained at Washington & Lee until joining the University of Kentucky in 2024.

Professor Boaz’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of immigration and criminal law, abolition, and issues related to immigration proceedings. Notably, his work has been published in the North Carolina Law Review, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, and the Tennessee Law Review.

Before attending law school, Professor Boaz taught Spanish with Teach For America—an experience that largely inspired his passion for both immigration law and teaching. He brings a timely and unique perspective to the Kentucky Law Journal’s Borders, Belonging, and the Law panel.

Timothy Arnold

Timothy Arnold is an experienced criminal defense attorney with the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy (DPA), where he has practiced since earning his J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1996. He began his career with the DPA in the Juvenile Post-Dispositional Branch (JPDB), which provides legal services to juveniles in state-operated residential treatment facilities and detention facilities, and later served as the JPDB branch manager from 2004 to 2008. From 2008 to 2023, he was Director of the Post-Trial Division, overseeing management of appeals, post-conviction challenges, and exonerations for criminal defendants. Today, he serves as a working attorney in the DPA’s Appeals Branch and has recently argued cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Kentucky Court of Appeals, and the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Over his career, Mr. Arnold has received numerous distinctions, including the Furman Award for his excellent representation in capital cases, the In re Gault Award for his representation of juveniles with the DPA, and the Jack Wasserman Memorial Award for excellence in immigrant rights litigation. Notably, in 2002, he secured the acquittal of Larry Osborne, an inmate previously sentenced to death.

Mr. Arnold also served as counsel in the landmark 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision Padilla v. Kentucky, which held that the Constitution requires criminal defense attorneys to advise noncitizen clients of potential immigration consequences that could result from entering a guilty plea. The Padilla holding reshaped defense practice nationwide and spurred the Kentucky DPA’s 2013 publication of the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions in Kentucky manual, to which Mr. Arnold contributed.

Drawing on this experience, Mr. Arnold will join the Kentucky Law Journal’s Crimmigration panel to discuss his role in Padilla and how public defenders have adapted to its lasting impact.

Katie Taylor

Katie Taylor is the Legal Director of Neighbors Immigration Clinic, a position she has held since January 2024. In this role, she leads the clinic’s mission to provide low-cost, accessible legal services to immigrants across Kentucky. Ms. Taylor personally meets with twelve to fifteen clients each week and contributes to the clinic’s advocacy in removal proceedings and in obtaining defensive asylum, affirmative asylum, and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status for clients across nineteen counties. Under her leadership, the clinic has also launched community workshops on topics such as the asylum system to educate and engage partner organizations that serve immigrant communities.

Ms. Taylor is a career immigrant rights advocate. She previously served as the Lexington Office Director for the Children’s Law Center and practiced as an immigration attorney with Kentucky Refugee Ministries. While earning her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2017, she volunteered at a Boston asylum clinic, gaining early, hands-on experience with asylum law. A 2014 graduate of the University of Kentucky with a B.S. in Computer Science, Ms. Taylor combines technical precision with a deeply human-centered approach to advocacy.

Her commitment is also personal: growing up in Louisville in a family with two internationally adopted siblings shaped her lifelong dedication to welcoming and supporting immigrant communities. Ms. Taylor will bring her expertise to the Kentucky Law Journal’s Navigating Immigration in Kentucky panel, sharing insights from her daily practice as a public-interest immigration lawyer.

Prof. Kit Johnson

Professor Kit Johnson is the Hugh Roff Professor of Law and a Thomas P. Hester Presidential Professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she is a leading scholar of immigration law. Before joining the faculty, Professor Johnson practiced commercial litigation at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, representing clients such as Berkshire Hathaway, Rambus, and Brighton Collectibles. In her spare time, she handled pro bono matters, including adoption and guardianship proceedings, and served on the Board of Directors of Inner Circle Foster Care and Adoption Services. Professor Johnson clerked for the Honorable Pamela A. Rymer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Robert C. Broomfield of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.

Professor Johnson earned her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Her scholarship addresses a wide range of immigration issues, including visa policies, federal prosecutions of immigration-related offenses, deportation practices, and detention center standards. She has published twenty-six scholarly articles concerning immigration law and is the author of two open-source casebooks—Immigration Law: An Open Casebook and Crimmigration Law: An Open Casebook—each now in multiple editions. At Oklahoma, Professor Johnson teaches courses on Immigration, Crimmigration, and Civil Procedure.

Professor Johnson will join the 2025 Kentucky Law Journal Fall Symposium as a guest speaker on the Crimmigration panel, drawing on her casebooks and scholarship, and considering potential reforms in this ever-evolving area of law.

Prof. Tiffany Lieu

Proffessor Tiffany Lieu is a Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor at Harvard Law School, where she teaches courses on Crimmigration, Strategic Litigation, and Immigration Advocacy. Through Harvard Law’s Crimmigration Clinic, Professor Lieu supervises and trains students on appellate and affirmative litigation as well as direct representation matters. She has litigated extensively in federal courts and administrative tribunals and has authored briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of the criminal and immigration legal systems, with a particular emphasis on procedural fairness in immigration proceedings.

She has a forthcoming article in the Columbia Law Review, titled The Accountability Deficit: When Immigration Detention Obstructs One’s Day in Criminal Court, which examines the problem of immigration detention obstructing immigrants’ ability to attend pending criminal court proceedings, and the implications for the intersection of criminal and immigration law. Her other recent publications include Effectively Irrebuttable Presumptions: Empty Rituals and Due Process in Immigration Proceedings, which argues that certain rebuttable presumptions in U.S. civil law function as effectively irrebuttable ones, undermining due process in the immigration context. Another of her publications, Denial of Justice: The Biden Administration’s Dedicated Docket in the Boston Immigration Court, offers an empirical study documenting the inequities faced by asylum-seeking families in expedited immigration proceedings.

Before joining Harvard Law School, Professor Lieu clerked for the Honorable Allyson K. Duncan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the Honorable Keith P. Ellison on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She previously served as a staff attorney at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and was a Stanford Public Interest Fellow. Professor Lieu earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her B.A. in History from Duke University.

With this background in scholarship, litigation, and advocacy, Professor Lieu will contribute her expertise to the Kentucky Law Journal’s Crimmigration panel.

Prof. Hiroshi Motomura

Professor Hiroshi Motomura has been a leading voice and scholar on U.S. immigration policy for over three decades. He completed his undergraduate studies at Yale University and received his J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law. He joined UCLA in 2007, where he is the Susan Westerberg Prager Distinguished Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Immigration Law & Policy. In 2013, he was one of only twenty-six professors nationwide profiled in What the Best Law Teachers Do, published by Harvard University Press.

Professor Motomura has shaped immigration and citizenship law as an internationally renowned professor, author, and advocate in immigration and citizenship law. He is the award-winning author of Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States (2006) and Immigration Outside the Law (2014), is co-author of a leading immigration law casebook, and most recently published Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy (2025). Beyond his scholarship, Professor Motomura is the co-host of a podcast series on immigration issues, testified before Congress, served as co-counsel and a consultant in immigration appellate cases, and advised the Obama-Biden transition team on immigration policy. He also is a founding director of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, and he served for nine years on the board of directors of the National Immigration Law Center.

Professor Motomura’s many accolades and publications reflect a career of lasting influence and distinction in the field of immigration law. Drawing on this expertise, he will bring his unique perspective to the Kentucky Law Journal’s Borders, Belonging, and the Law panel, where he will discuss the complexities of immigration law through the lens of his recent book.

State Rep. Nima Kulkarni

State Representative Nima Kulkarni currently represents Kentucky’s 40th District in the State House of Representatives. Elected in 2018, she has sponsored or co-sponsored over 441 bills while continuing to practice law. She is also the first ever Indian immigrant elected to the Kentucky Legislature.

Since immigrating to the United States at age six, Representative Kulkarni has spent most of her life in Louisville, attending Watterson Elementary, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School. She remained in Louisville following her high school graduation, earning a B.A. in English Literature and an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship from the University of Louisville. She eventually moved to Washington, D.C. for law school, where she received her J.D. from the Antioch-UDC Law School.

In 2010, Representative Kulkarni founded Indus Law Firm, which specializes in complex immigration and employment matters. She remains a Principal Attorney at Indus, representing clients and providing trainings, information sessions, and seminars for attorneys statewide. She also serves on multiple nonprofit boards, including the New Americans Initiative, which she founded in 2013. The New Americans Initiative is dedicated to educating, engaging, and supporting pathways for Kentucky immigrants to participate in the electoral process by naturalizing.

Representative Kulkarni has been widely recognized for her advocacy of immigration-related issues, and will be participating in the Kentucky Law Journal’s Navigating Immigration in Kentucky panel. Her discussion will also emphasize the role of sanctuary jurisdictions and how federal and state immigration policies directly affect those in our Commonwealth.