CHANGE MAKERS NITHYA NATHAN-PINEAU

is a policy attorney and strategist based in Washington, DC. She focuses on federal legislative advocacy at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC). Her work is focused on policies combating criminalization of immigrant communities, including developing and cultivating partnerships with community-based organizations and elected officials and providing legal education and training. Nithya brings nearly a decade of experience providing legal services to immigrants in Texas, Virginia, and Maryland. Prior to joining the ILRC, Nithya served as the Director of the Children’s Program at the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition. She also worked at the Tahirih Justice Center and the South Texas Pro Bono and Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR). Nithya focused on removal defense and humanitarian-based immigration relief including affirmative and defensive asylum, special immigrant juvenile status, protection under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), DACA, and U and T visas. Nithya obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish and Political Science from Tufts University, and she earned her law degree from Brooklyn Law School. Nithya is admitted to the bar in Texas and New Jersey. She is fluent in English and Spanish and conversational in Tamil.

Tell us about the work that you do, and how you first became interested in your profession. I work at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, which is a national nonprofit that's based in San Francisco. I work in our DC office as a policy attorney, primarily working on federal legislative advocacy, which means I work on legislation to make the immigration system in our country more just and fair. The areas that I focus mostly on are policy around immigration detention, enforcement, the criminalization of immigrant communities, and drug policy as it relates to immigrants. I work both on legislative advocacy and also advocacy with the different component agencies of the federal government. Sometimes I’m meeting with folks in the White House, and sometimes we're meeting with folks from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or from the Departmant of Justice (DOJ) pending the areas within my portfolio.

Prior to advocacy and policy work, I represented immigrants seeking asylum, primarily folks in detention. I worked in the courts in Harlingen, TX, which was my first job out of law school. I came to the DC area almost 10 years ago, and I've been working here at different nonprofits primarily representing kids and families. I've always had an interest in working with children. In law school I studied education law and worked a lot in education, but when I discovered that there was an overlap in my interest in working with youth and my family’s history of immigration, being able to blend my personal story with my professional interests really fit what I was looking to do. My parents immigrated to this country, my mom as a teenager and my dad as an adult, and that's really shaped who we are as a family and how I see the world.

How has your career progressed, and how has your role changed, especially given recent world events? At the advice of a mentor, I had a lot of experience practicing advocacy before I moved into policy and that was intentional. I wanted to get to know the immigration court system before I tried to work on policy.

I always had this idea that I wanted to work in policy, and I wanted to write legislation, but I didn't know how to get there. I also really knew that I wanted to represent folks, and that I liked the sort of personal contact you get when you're in court. I really loved that energy and adrenaline you get from a trial and being able to help people during the process. The advice I got from a mentor very early on was to work within the system and take on lots of clients and lots of different kinds of cases to see and understand what really needs to change. It's hard to come up with a policy solution if you don't know all the components of the system. I focused on representation and creating good, culturally competent practices.

What is your proudest professional accomplishment to date? The first client who I represented on my own was granted asylum. She's now a US citizen and is on track to graduate from high school. When I worked with her, she was seven years old. She and her mother have really built a life for themselves and become members of their community. Being able to see a client go through the whole lifespan of their case, heal from trauma, and build this amazing life in the US is very inspiring, and it's honestly why I went to law school.

What is your biggest career challenge you have faced and what did you learn from it? Even though our country has a long history of exclusion-based immigration policy, working in immigration through the last administration with the barrage of policies and the pace at which immigration law was changing was devastating. As advocates, we had to be creative, draw on different skill sets, learn new areas of law, and become more reliant on tools that we were not used to. We had to really educate ourselves and partner with people, which called for a lot empathy and kindness for each other. That time period pushed me to move toward influencing both legislation and policy that's written by the agencies. Everyone I think is familiar with Miranda rights or has seen Law & Order, and you hear them talking about how if you can't afford an attorney, you'll be appointed an attorney. In the immigration system everyone has the right to an attorney, but no one has the right to an appointed attorney. There is no guarantee that if you are not able to pay for your own lawyer you will get one. In particular, we see this impacting the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. The program I was running was for kids, and we could not represent every child. And so when you think about children going to court alone, it is as nonsensical and horrible as it sounds. There are a lot of arguments now that there should be more investments in programs that provide counsel to immigrants. This area of my work is really important.

In what ways did MKA prepare you for the path your life has taken? The school’s emphasis on critical thinking made a huge impact. Some of my favorite classes that I took at MKA were history classes, and they translated directly into my work now because anytime that I am working on a policy campaign, there's a historical context and we're trying to find out why a particular piece of legislation came about and why it might need to change now at this point. Being able to read and analyze something critically is something foundational at MKA that you start doing at a very young age. Many of my teachers really influenced that ability at MKA. Additionally, I appreciated the school’s emphasis on civic engagement.

What is one piece of advice you would give to current MKA students? I think that MKA sets you up to do whatever you want to do in life, but you must emphasize looking around you to see how you can be of service to others. Take all of that privilege and goodness that you get from MKA and use it out in the world. It will take you far.