Asylum 101

Renee C. Redman is a sole practitioner in New Haven, CT where she practices only immigration law. She handles simple and complex cases, focusing on asylum, family-based immigration, deferred action, waivers, and removal cases. She represents clients in removal cases before immigration courts, and on appeal to the BIA and higher federal courts. She also teaches immigration law as an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. She is also a professional French Hornist. 

Valeria Gomez is the William R. Davis Clinical Teaching Fellow at the University of Connecticut School of Law. She co-teaches UConn Law’s Asylum and Human Rights Clinic, where law students represent people who have fled persecution and are seeking protection in the United States. Prof. Gomez previously worked in her hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, with Volunteer Immigrant Defense Advocates (VIDA), a nonprofit legal services organization she co-founded in 2016. As an attorney with VIDA, she represented recently arrived unaccompanied immigrant children in removal proceedings, mentored new immigration practitioners, and gave frequent presentations to community groups.

Kathryn R. Weber is a senior attorney at Scott D. Pollock & Associates, P.C. in Chicago, and has been practicing immigration law since 2004. She holds a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School. Ms. Weber practices in the areas of family-based immigration, waivers, religious workers, naturalization, removal defense, asylum, VAWA/U visas, and immigration litigation and appeals. She served on the Executive Board of the AILA Chicago Chapter between 2010 and 2015, and has chaired and served on numerous AILA Chicago Chapter and AILA National committees. She is currently co-chair of the AILA Chicago Chapter CBP Liaison Committee and a member of the AILA National Asylum and Refugee Committee.

Matthew Gilbert Weisner received his J.D. from UC Davis School of Law and his B.A. with High Honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mr. Weisner was admitted to the California Bar in 2013, and previously worked as the Supervising Immigration Attorney at Catholic Charities of the East Bay and as a UC Davis Law Fellow. As a senior immigration attorney at the Central American Resource Center of Northern California (CARECEN SF), Mr. Weisner represents clients in a variety of affirmative and defensive casework, including asylum, special immigrant juvenile status, family petitions, adjustment of status, consular processing, inadmissibility waivers, U-Visa, T-Visa, naturalization, custody proceedings, and other immigration remedies. He has served as AILA NorCal co-liaison to the San Francisco Asylum Office since 2018. In his free time, Mr. Weisner likes to listen to podcasts with his wife and visit his hometown of Santa Cruz.