Our panel will discuss the cultural, social, economic, and legal factors that create barriers for immigrant victims of domestic violence and sexual assault; as well as the special immigration protections for abused immigrants in the Violence Against Women Act (e.g., self-petitions for permanent residency, cancellation of removal (deportation), 'U visas' for immigrant crime victims, and asylum based on membership in gender-based social groups).
 
Ginger Devaney is a staff attorney at the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic who has been working with immigrant communities for over 10 years. Her "Independence Project" unites immigration, family law, and social services into an accessible, trauma-minimizing package to achieve social, legal, and economic independence for victims of domestic violence who seek orders of protection in Chicago. Ms. Devaney has a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law.

Karla Altmayer is a co-founder & co-director of Healing to Action, an organization working towards building a worker-led movement to end gender violence. She has worked at the intersection of poverty and gender violence for the last ten years. As an Equal Justice Works fellow, Ms. Altmayer launched Proyecto de Apoyo with LAF Chicago to empower farmworker women victims of workplace sexual violence. During her fellowship, she litigated federal/state employment law cases and immigration cases, and developed a trauma-informed outreach model to do community building around gender violence. She also co-founded and co-led the Coalition Against Workplace Sexual Violence (CAWSV), a collaboration among sexual assault advocates, attorneys, and labor organizers in Chicago, IL. As a staff attorney for the National Immigrant Justice Center, Ms. Altmayer represented multiple survivors of gender violence. She also edited and co-authored a manual for advocates and organizers to promote a model for multidisciplinary collaboration essential to address workplace sexual violence. Ms. Altmayer graduated from Loyola University Chicago, and Northern Illinois University, College of Law.