Elizabeth Frankel Fellows Program
Supporting Law Students as they learn to advocate effectively for immigrant children and families.
About the Elizabeth Frankel Fellowship Program
In 2022, the Young Center announced its first annual Elizabeth Frankel Fellowship. The fellowship gives participants the opportunity to spend 10 weeks training to advocate for children, and to carry on the work of honoring the child’s wishes through careful, strategic advocacy.
Fellows will serve as Child Advocates for unaccompanied immigrant children and will conduct legal research, writing under the guidance of Young Center staff within the Child Advocate Program. Fellows will be based in Houston and have the opportunity to spend a week of the Fellowship Program in the Young Center’s Harlingen, TX office to understand how immigration patterns, enforcement, and advocacy play out on the ground along the U.S.- Mexico border. Fellows receive a stipend of $10,000 for 10 weeks.
Alondra Vazquez Lopez
Alondra Vazquez Lopez is a rising third-year student at Columbia Law School. Before law school Alondra completed an MSc. in Migration Studies where she carried out ethnographic research on transnational migrant communities and mixed-status families. Alondra has worked with Sanctuary for Families as an Anti-Trafficking fellow and with the Detained Adult Program at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. She has also worked with the Institute for Women in Migration in Mexico City, where she worked on U Visa cases and assisted immigrants in migrant camps with CBP One registration. In New York, Alondra often works with CUNY Citizenship Now and the NYLS asylum clinic assisting with citizenship exam preparation and asylum applications as needed. Alondra hopes to continue working alongside immigrant communities through the law and through collective advocacy.
“My personal familial experiences with the U.S. immigration apparatus fuels my commitment to work alongside immigrant communities. My pursuit of law is quite similar to my acquisition of English, it’s a tool that I hope helps my community and I understand a system, so as to reimagine it together, in a way that respects and affords individuals rights beyond citizenship status.”
Kasandra Hernandez Rodriguez
Kasandra is a rising second-year law student at New England Law | Boston with a strong interest in immigration and public interest law. Before entering law school, she worked in Washington, D.C., as a paralegal with the Legal Orientation Program for Custodians of Unaccompanied Minors at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington. In this role, she provided legal orientations to custodians navigating the immigration system across D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Kasandra also supported pro se workshops and served as a Friend of the Court during immigration hearings, assisting unrepresented respondents. These experiences continue to shape her commitment to advocating for immigrant populations through accessible legal support.
“My desire to work with immigrant communities is rooted in both personal and professional experience. I’ve witnessed how accessible, compassionate legal support can make a lasting difference, and I am driven to empower individuals and families to navigate a complex system with dignity and respect.”
Rossiel Reyes
Rossiel is a rising third-year law student at the University of Kansas School of Law. Born and raised in a small town in central Kansas to a family of Mexican immigrants, she witnessed the difficulties her family faced as they navigated—and continue to navigate—the immigration system in rural Kansas. In law school, she has dedicated her time to advocating for immigrant rights through student groups and local grass-roots organizations. She is currently working on starting KU Law’s first Immigration Law Association to provide support and resources for interested students at KU. At her past internships at the Kansas Board for Indigents’ Defense Services and a Federal District Court of Kansas, she witnessed the intersection of immigration and criminal law and learned how much immigration affects all aspects of law. She is particularly interested in the crossover of immigration, family, and criminal law and is excited to see some of these intersections as a fellow.
“My personal experiences, living in a mixed-status household in rural Kansas, drives my passion to work with immigrant communities. In spaces that are not always welcoming to immigrants, you learn pretty quickly that having a community behind you is how you survive. Now, I feel it is my turn to give back and I chose to do so through a legal career to become a resource for my community.”
About Elizabeth M. Frankel
Elizabeth M. Frankel (1977-2021) was the first Associate Director of the Young Center. She joined the Young Center in late 2009, as one of three full-time employees, becoming part of a trio of attorneys in Chicago who would develop and implement an entirely new model for advocating for the rights of immigrant children and youth. Today the Young Center has ten offices across the country with more than 130 staff. Liz was involved in the creation and development of each and every office. From 2009 to 2015, Liz taught in the Immigrant Child Advocacy Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. She loved mentoring law students and helping them develop their skills to pursue careers in public interest law or take pro bono cases.
