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.

Marzia Azizi is an Afghan national who was evacuated to the United States after the collapse of the Afghan government in August 2021. Marzia holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and Public Administration with a minor in Law from the American University of Afghanistan. Before coming to the United States, she worked in project officer and coordinator positions with research firms and NGOs in Afghanistan. Marzia has managed and supervised several research projects focusing on internally displaced people (IDPs), returnees, women empowerment, and community development for various clients. Currently, she is also volunteering with a group that supports school-age girls back in Afghanistan to access better education. Marzia is fluent in Dari (native), English, and Pashto. She lives in Maryland, USA.

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.