Our Staff
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Perla Baez
Immigration Civil Legal Advocate DirectorPerla Baez
Immigration Civil Legal Advocate Director contactPerla Baez (she/her/hers) graduated from SUNY Albany with a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice and Spanish Literature. Prior to joining The Bronx Defenders, she worked as a Legal Interpreter for a criminal defense attorney; interned at the office of the Bronx Borough President; and was part of a legal support group working with the Finance and Records Department for Fitzpatrick Harper Cella Scinto. Since joining The Bronx Defenders, Perla has held many positions, including as a Receptionist, Legal Assistant, Arraignment Clerk, and Team Administrator before moving into her current role as an Immigration Civil Legal Advocate. Perla is fluent in Spanish.
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Austin Thierry (Staff Attorney, Immigration Practice)
Austin Thierry (Staff Attorney, Immigration Practice)
contactAustin (he/him/his) is from Oxnard, CA, and has a B.A. in Political Economy from UC Berkeley. Prior to attending law school, Austin worked for four years as a paralegal at a law firm in San Francisco, CA where he assisted immigrants pursuing various forms of relief from deportation. At NYU Law, Austin was a student advocate in the Immigrant Rights Clinic and interned with the Orleans and Brooklyn Public Defenders Offices. During his last semester in law school, Austin interned with the Bronx Defenders Immigration Practice through the Pro Bono Scholars Program.
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Keiana James (Staff Attorney, Immigration Practice)
Keiana James (Staff Attorney, Immigration Practice)
contactKeiana (she/her/hers) was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY by a blended family of New Yorkers and Jamaican immigrants. She graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science, French, and International Relations from Amherst College, finishing her studies by writing a French thesis entitled “Living in the Imaginary: An Exploration of Liminality Within Cahier d’un retour au pays natal and L’Énigme du retour.” This allowed her to infuse her own experience as a first-generation American living in various communities into a literary analysis of texts at the intersections of Blackness, home, and belonging. At NYU, she brought these experiences into her work as a student advocate in the Immigrant Rights Clinic and as a Pro Bono Scholar. Keiana is thrilled to be joining the immigration practice here at BxD; she is looking forward to continuing to foster an intersectional lens of the carceral systems in the United States and supporting abolitionist movements.