Dalia Castillo-Granados spoke to NPF fellows in McAllen, Texas January 23, 2023 on “Defending Immigrant Children’s Rights.”

Dalia Castillo-Granados is the co-founder and director of the Children’s Immigration Law Academy (CILA), a project of the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Immigration. Castillo-Granados is a frequent speaker on Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) and led the effort at the ABA to advocate for deferred action for SIJS youth stuck in the visa backlog. Prior to working at CILA, Castillo-Granados was a senior attorney at Kids in Need of Defense, a staff attorney at Tahirih Justice Center, a clinical supervising attorney at the University of Houston’s Immigration Clinic, and a Greenberg Traurig, LLP Equal Justice Works fellow at Catholic Charities’ Cabrini Center. Throughout her career, Castillo-Granados has represented hundreds of children in their immigration proceedings and before Texas state courts.