Danielle DeWinter joined the Immigration Project in July 2017, eager to improve access to legal services for immigrants throughout Illinois. Danielle began representing immigrants while obtaining her Bachelors Degree in Psychology from Butler University in Indianapolis, IN, serving domestic violence and sexual assault survivors to obtain immigration relief. Danielle saw the need for legal representation for immigrant survivors and went to Valparaiso University School of Law to become an immigration attorney. While in law school, Danielle honed her legal writing skills as an extern with the Department of Homeland Security writing appellate briefs and preparing for merit hearings. She then took a position as a Student Attorney at Valparaiso Immigration Clinic where she successfully represented a political asylum seeker in Chicago Immigration Court.

After law school, Danielle continued to be inspired by her immigrant clients’ zeal for life and became an AmeriCorps attorney for two years in Massachusetts representing low-income immigrants with U visa, VAWA, asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, adjustment of status, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals petitions. With the Immigration Project, Danielle worked as Staff Attorney, as Senior Supervising Staff Attorney, and then was promoted to Legal Director. Her work and passion revolves around assisting other advocates in their cases through strategy development while maintaining a small caseload of direct representation for more complex legal cases. She has developed a few programs focused on expanding our legal capacity to include assisting children detained at the border and detained adults. Furthermore, she worked alongside Immigration Project’s leaders to expand services to include providing social services to better serve the community. She remains inspired by her clients and all the people who want to be involved creating a holistic approach to legal advocacy and a safe environment for our immigrant community.