A native of San Antonio, TX, Kat has represented children, families, and adults in their immigration cases for over 15 years. She began her immigration career representing unaccompanied immigrant children in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas with the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR). She later moved to New York City where she was a Pro Bono Coordinator with Kids in in Need of Defense (KIND) and a Supervising Attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS). At BDS, Kat focused on representing criminal justice-involved youth in defensive and affirmative cases including Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. She also spoke before the New York City Council about the needs of her clients and gave Know Your Rights presentations in the Brooklyn area.
More recently, Kat returned to her hometown of San Antonio and joined the removal defense team at RAICES, where she eventually became Director of Removal Defense. Kat represented detained adult clients with funding from the City of San Antonio’s first-ever “universal representation” program, and she later advocated for the establishment of Bexar County’s $1 million legal defense fund for immigrants. She also represented detained parents who were separated during Zero Tolerance, and she helped to launch RAICES’s Immigration Court Helpdesk in Laredo during the second implementation of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Kat also oversaw the Operation Lone Star team at Texas Rio Grande Public Defender from 2023-2024.
At DMCA, Kat zealously represents clients before the immigration court, the BIA, and USCIS. Kat is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and Columbia University, and she is fluent in Spanish.