Register for the July Acting for Justice Webinar

In our July Acting for Justice, we will hear from three individuals from Los Angeles, at the epicenter of the current crisis. Attorney Linda Dakin-Grimm provides pro bono legal services to unaccompanied children and separated families in immigration proceedings, and acts as counsel to several NGOs in actions against the federal government based on unlawful immigration policies. Dr. Cecilia González-Andrieu will return and share her experiences as an educator accompanying students and families of mixed status, and leader of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the U.S. JFM staff member, Heidi Villaluz, is a ministry leader and native Angeleno, and will moderate the conversation.

Linda Dakin-Grimm is a senior consulting partner at Milbank LLP, where she has handled numerous jury and bench trials, appeals and arbitration proceedings in courts across the United States. Commencing in 2016, Ms.Dakin-Grimm concentrated her practice on pro bono immigration matters. Since then, she has taken on more than one hundred unaccompanied children and separated families in immigration proceedings. In addition to the required legal work in immigration and state courts, Ms. Dakin-Grimm acts as counsel to several NGOs in actions against the federal government based on unlawful immigration policies. She is a member of the board of directors of the International Institute of Los Angeles (a refugee agency), the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Southern California Catholic Task Force on Immigration, as well as a trustee of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Her first book, Dignity and Justice: Welcoming the Stranger at the Border, was published by Orbis Press in September 2020. Ms. Dakin-Grimm received her B.A. from Yale University, her J.D. from Harvard Law School and an M.A. in Theology from Loyola Marymount University. She was an Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harin 2020. 

Back by popular demand, theologian Dr. Cecilia González-Andrieu is a leading scholar of theological aesthetics, which she proposes as a way to bring communities together, respect and celebrate otherness, and lift the theological insights of those who know and express themselves from the peripheries.  She is one of the contributing writers for America magazine, penning a number of significant essays on political theology, Latinx theologies, and women’s issues. Her book “Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty” has received international acclaim.  González -Andrieu teaches in Loyola Marymount University’s Department of Theological Studies, co-chairs the LMU Latino Theology and Ministry Initiative, is an active supporter of the Ignatian Solidarity Network, an advisor for the Discerning Deacons Project.  Cecilia was also recently inaugurated as President of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, which is dedicated to promoting research and critical theological reflection within the context of the U.S. Hispanic experience.