Aissa Olivarez is the Managing Attorney at the Community Immigration Law Center (CILC). She joined CILC in August 2017 and as a part of the organization provides deportation defense. Aissa has represented many clients in removal and bond proceedings, and appeals.

Prior to joining CILC, Aissa was a Staff Attorney at the Pro Bono Asylum Representation Children’s Project (ProBAR), where she represented unaccompanied minor children who were placed in removal proceedings by the Department of Homeland Security in Harlingen, Texas. During law school, Aissa participated in the Immigrant Justice Clinic and the Defenders Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School. In September 2018, Aissa was awarded the Belle Case LaFollette Award by the Wisconsin Law Foundation for her work with under-served communities.

Aissa earned her B.A. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a first grade teacher for 4 years in the Austin Independent School District before deciding to pursue her law degree. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in May 2016, where she was an active leader in the Student Bar Association and served as president of the Latinx Law Student Association. During her tenure at UW, she received accolades such as the Barbara B. Crabb Prize, the LLSA Comunidad Award, the Ray and Ethel Brown Award, the Public Interest Scholar Award as well as the Children’s Justice Project Fellowship, among others. Aissa lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband and daughter.

Laura Graham is a Staff Attorney at the Community Immigration Law Center (CILC).

Before joining CILC she worked for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley for four years. Laura obtained her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School (cum laude), where she participated in the Immigrant Justice Clinic and the Oxford Federal Project. Additionally, in law school, she volunteered with CILC and Legal Action of Wisconsin’s Migrant Farmworker Project, and interned with Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson. As a law student, she was awarded the Association for Women Lawyers Pomeroy Scholarship for service to the disadvantaged and the Feingold Memorial Award for outstanding commitment to the University of Wisconsin Law School and community.

Prior to attending law school, she worked for Human Rights Watch in its Americas Division in Washington D.C. She also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras and El Salvador, and was an AmeriCorps volunteer on the Hopi reservation in Arizona.

Laura obtained dual B.A. degrees from the University of California-Berkeley (English and Geography). She also obtained an M.A. in International Relations from the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, Argentina as a Rotary Peace Fellow. She speaks Spanish.

Natalia Lucak began working as a Lead Project Attorney at the Community Immigration Law Center(CILC) in June 2022 where she is developing and coordinating a Pro Se Asylum Clinic program. Prior to working at CILC, she was a Clinical Instructor at the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School between January 2021 and May 2022, where she taught law students how to represent clients on various types of immigration cases.

Between 2014 and 2020, Natalia worked and resided in New York City. Between 2019 and 2020 Natalia was a Special Projects Supervising Attorney at Catholic Charities Community Services in New York City, where she assessed and mentored cases for pro bono representation, specializing in cases involving immigrant youth who face legal challenges in both family court and immigration court. From 2016 until 2018, Natalia supervised a team of two attorneys and six paralegals at Catholic Charities Community Services as a part of the ActionNYC in Schools Project, a collaboration with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and a host of New York City non-profits. Through ActionNYC in Schools, Natalia implemented programming to deliver weekly, onsite legal supervision and representation to immigrant students and their families citywide at public middle schools and high schools, covering the largest school district in the country.

Prior to her work at Catholic Charities Community Services, Natalia represented low-income clients in removal proceedings as well as victims of human trafficking and domestic violence as a Staff Attorney at New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG). In her role at NYLAG, Natalia also supported community initiatives by coordinating large scale legal clinics and conducting volunteer trainings to respond to emerging needs of immigrant communities across New York City.

Natalia earned her Bachelor of Arts in European History from Barnard College in 2007. She then graduated with honors from University of Maryland School of Law in 2012, where she served on the Maryland Journal of International Law as Senior Editor. As a law student, Natalia also completed a judicial internship at the Executive Office for Immigration Review in Baltimore, Maryland. After law school, Natalia spent nearly a year in Cape Town, South Africa working as a legal intern at two of the leading public interest law and human rights organizations, The Legal Resources Centre and PASSOP (People against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty).

Diana Benitez joins Community Immigration Law Center (CILC) as a Paralegal. Diana graduated from

Madison College’s Paralegal Program and did her internship at CILC.

Prior to joining CILC, Diana was as Stafford Rosenbaum as a Legal Administrative Assistant in the area

of Family Law. She has many years in the Customer Service in a wide variety of industries, and uses

those skills to help clients with dignity and respect. Coming from a family of immigrants and

remembering the difficulties her family faced, Diana wanted to specialize in the area of Immigration Law.

She is proud to be a part of CILC and is eager to serve the community.