VECINA’s Team

Lindsay Goldford Gray is the CEO of VECINA and lives in Austin, Texas. For the past seven years, Lindsay has run a small immigration firm representing clients in a wide variety of immigration matters. Prior to becoming an immigration lawyer, Lindsay was a public defender for the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office. There she represented hundreds of clients in many aspects of litigation, including bond hearings, motions, and over twenty jury trials. Outside of VECINA, Lindsay is an adjunct professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, where she teaches Immigration Law in the online LLM/MLS program. 

Prior to coming on board with VECINA, Molly Chew spent nearly seven years working with unaccompanied refugee children and their families in an array of Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) contracted programs. This included ORR shelters, foster care, and home study/post-release services. Most recently, she was the Western Regional Supervisor for a program that made reunification recommendations for detained unaccompanied minors and connected these children and their families with community resources upon reunification. Additionally, Molly has spent ample time volunteering in Tijuana, Mexico with asylum seekers and spent a year volunteering with a New York-based legal aid organization that represented individuals who were seeking asylum or T Visas after having been trafficked or persecuted on account of their gender identity. Molly is a DOJ Accredited Representative and is obtaining her Master’s Degree in Refugee Protection and Forced Migration Studies from the University of London. Molly lives in Portland, Oregon.

Jennie Guilfoyle comes to us as the former Deputy Legal Director for the Immigration Justice Campaign at the American Immigration Council. Before joining the Council, she spent four years as an Attorney Adviser at the State Department in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, working on issues ranging from citizenship to intercountry adoption. Prior to that, she worked for many years as a Senior Training Attorney at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, designing and leading in-person and online trainings on a wide range of immigration law topics. She also worked at Church World Service, where she trained refugee resettlement programs on immigration law and program management. She began her legal career as an Equal Justice Works fellow at the New York Association for New Americans, where she represented asylum and VAWA applicants. Jennie lives in Washington, D.C.

Karen Cepeda was born in Colombia and she has called the United States, Brazil, and Argentina home. She worked as project coordinator for nearly a decade at a safety office that provided emergency support to journalists and their families in danger. Karen has spearheaded human rights campaigns and safety training programs for press workers in conflict zones throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. She has also worked in international human rights organizations that promote social justice. She is passionate about learning new languages, and the fight to overcome language barriers for immigrants. She is a volunteer interpreter for organizations that assist refugees and new asylees in the US., and was previously a VECINA ReUnite volunteer prior to joining our team. Karen lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Similoluwa Odeniyi brings experience in social justice advocacy, development fundraising, and partnerships development. Her international background and multi-sector career experience have shaped her diverse approach to work, building capacity for mission-driven organizations in the US and Nigeria. Recently, she was selected as a Carol H. Pitchersky Fellow, an endowment managed by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. The Carol H. Pitchersky Fellowship identifies and supports persons of color who have demonstrated a commitment to civil rights and social justice and who wish to advance their careers in nonprofit fundraising. With over 200 member organizations, The Leadership Conference is the United States’ largest civil and human rights coalition and a leading advocate for minority issues. In 2020, Similoluwa worked collaboratively with senior leadership and partners at The Leadership Conference to expand and transform the organization’s corporate philanthropy portfolio during such a critical time in the nation. Similoluwa looks forward to continuing the work of uplifting underserved communities through VECINA’s mission. She holds a Political Science degree from the University of California, San Diego and lives in Dallas, Texas.

Chelsea Mack joins VECINA after serving the immigrant population as an attorney with Brown Immigration Law handling a myriad of case types including asylum, family-based, citizenship and removal defense. She began her legal career focusing on the prosecution of child sacrifice cases as a legal fellow with the Directorate of Public Prosecutions in Kampala, Uganda in partnership with the Center for Global Justice housed within her alma mater, Regent University School of Law. Chelsea lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Ashley DiGiore has a background in education, receiving both her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Special Education. While working with a local community center, she had the opportunity to attend Villanova’s VIISTA program to develop her understanding of and find ways to help local immigrants. This awakened her passion for supporting immigrants, and while attending the VIISTA program, she began volunteering with many of VECINA’s programs. After completion of the VIISTA program, she then began developing an Immigration Legal Services program at the community center she was working at. She and the Westside Community Center received accreditation from the DOJ in September 2022, and she received accreditation with VECINA in October 2022. She is currently the Director of Westside’s immigration program and is thrilled to be joining the amazing team at VECINA. She lives on the east coast with her husband and two elementary aged children. 

Kristen Nilsen joins VECINA from private practice. For the past 5 years, she has run a solo practice in northern California, helping clients navigate our complex immigration laws. Prior to that, Kristen worked for Refugee Women’s Alliance and Lutheran Community Services Northwest as an immigration attorney, providing low-cost legal assistance to refugees with naturalization, adjustment of status, family petitions, and consular processing. She also trained and mentored new attorneys, law students, and accredited representatives in immigration law. Kristen began her career as an Immigration Services Officer with USCIS before transitioning to working with refugees. Kristen currently lives in Seattle, Washington.

Alex Miller is a Senior Advisor at VECINA. She is deeply committed to the immigration justice movement and has broad experience representing asylum seekers, advocating for migrants’ access to justice, and working to amplify the impact of pro bono volunteers. After working in corporate law in New York for five years, Alex moved back to her hometown of Tucson, Arizona to work at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, ultimately leading their Border Action Team. From there, she joined the International Rescue Committee as the Director for Asylum Seekers and Families in Arizona, managing one of the primary border shelters in the state of Arizona. More recently, she was the Director of the Immigration Justice Campaign at the American Immigration Council, where she led a team dedicated to recruiting, training, and mentoring pro bono attorneys to increase migrants’ access to counsel. Alex attended Georgetown University for undergrad and Stanford Law School. Alex currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law, teaching Refugee Law and Policy at the University of Arizona.