Ilyce is an ILD Managing Attorney providing consultation and legal representation through our Legal-Education partnerships within the California State University (CSU) and California Community College (CCC) systems, as well as detained and non-detained clients before the immigration courts, the Federal Courts of Appeals, and US District Courts–including individuals in the National Qualified Representative Program (NQRP) who have been determined by the immigration court to be unable to represent themselves due to mental health disabilities. Ilyce also provides supervision, mentorship, and consulting to some of ILD’s partner organizations and serves as an adjunct professor for the Villanova Interdisciplinary Immigration Studies for Advocates program, where she taught immigration law to advocates working to become Department of Justice accredited representatives.

EXPERIENCE Prior to joining ILD, Ilyce was the first director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Justice and Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco (JDC), where she supervised the legal team, developed systems for the growing program, managed grants and fundraising efforts, and participated in the steering committee for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. Before joining J.D.C, Ilyce served as an immigration judge in the San Francisco Immigration Court for 18 months but resigned from this position during the Trump administration due to its anti-immigrant policies that violated due process. Ilyce spent five and a half years as the director of the immigration program at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto (CLSEPA), where she grew the program five-fold and expanded the legal services provided to the community. While at CLSEPA, Ilyce helped launch several Bay Area removal defense collaboratives, including the Santa Clara County Collaborative, the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative (SFILDC), and the Northern California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. Ilyce spent over ten years at Van Der Hout LLP, the last three of which she spent as a partner. At Van Der Hout, Ilyce represented clients in complex cases before USCIS, immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, circuit courts of appeals, and US district courts.

EDUCATION Ilyce holds a BA in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a JD from DePaul University College of Law (cum laude). Ilyce is a member of the California and Illinois bars and is fluent in Spanish.