MANOS

Nancy is from Oaxaca and has dedicated her life to working with migrants from Mexico and from Central America. Before cofounding MANOS, she was founder and director of Caminos A.C., a non-profit organization dedicated to the search, guidance, and support of Oaxacan migrants and their families. She was also director of COMI, the only shelter in Oaxaca for Central Americans and she worked for nine years giving guidance and information to refugees about the asylum process in Mexico. She is coauthor of Tools for the Search of Migrants. For three years, she was also part of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology team specializing in the identification of migrants through DNA testing. Nancy is member of the Justice in Motion network and the Activist and Defender network in Oaxaca.  Nancy is a teacher and consultant with the abroad program for the School of International Training that brings students from the United States to Oaxaca to learn about immigration and human rights. In 2018, she completed her degree in Economic, Social, and Cultural Human Rights at the ProDESC School for Transnational Justice in Mexico City. Through her work and passion, she is recognized by the people and government of Oaxaca as one of the most dedicated and effective migrant human rights defenders. 

Florence Weinberg is a migrant, a U.S. licensed immigration attorney, and now a resident of Oaxaca, Mexico. Her practice in the United States was focused on defending undocumented people and residents in deportation proceedings. She has specialized in the reopening of cases for those who have been deported as well as appealing and litigating cases in the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She has worked with a variety of programs including as a staff attorney representing women and children seeking asylum at a family detention center in Texas with the Dilley Pro Bono Project, with the Immigration Justice Project of San Diego helping appeal cases for asylum-seekers who are detained and suffer from severe mental health illnesses, as a volunteer attorney with DACA recipients and their families, and as an invited speaker with various university programs looking to gain a better understanding of the immigration system in the United States and its impact on undocumented students. Florence also works as a teacher and consultant with the School of International Training and their program that brings university students to Oaxaca to learn about immigration and human rights.