H. Marissa Montes

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT H. MARISSA MONTES

H. Marissa Montes is the Director and Founder of Loyola Law School’s Immigrant Justice Clinic. She built LIJC while in law school in response to an unmet need for free immigration legal services on the Eastside of Los Angeles. She was then awarded Loyola’s Public Interest Fellowship, to establish the clinic and develop its immigration-lawyering curriculum for law students. Marissa also teaches courses on Cross-Cultural Competency and Trauma-Informed Lawyering, as well as Loyola’s Immigration Law and Border Practicum, which brings law students to El Paso, Texas, during spring break to provide pro bono counsel to immigrants facing removal. Marissa serves as a visiting professor at the ITESO in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she teaches U.S. asylum law and counsels migrants in transit at local shelters. She serves on the California Department of Justice, Calgang Database Technical Advisory Committee and was appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti to serve on the inaugural Los Angeles Commission on Civil and Human Rights. She was recently selected to join the immigration committee of the transition team for Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, where she drafted policy recommendations on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions and the issuances of U and T visa certifications. Marissa has received recognition as a Top Young Lawyer by the ABA (2017) and the HNBA (2019). She has testified before the California State Assembly, and her work has been highlighted on many media outlets including, CNN, NPR, the Los Angeles Times and others. She received her B.A. in International Relations and Spanish from the University of Southern California and her J.D. from Loyola in 2012.