Grisel Ruiz is a staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and focuses on the intersection between immigration law and criminal law. She advises defense attorneys on the immigration consequences of criminal offenses and supports immigration enforcement campaigns across California. Before joining the ILRC, Grisel was a litigation association at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. Grisel previously received the Stimson Fellowship to head a project through which she co-founded “Know Your Rights” programs at two Northern California ICE-contracted facilities. These KYRs projects provided individual representation, pro bono referrals, pro se materials, and case consultations to hundreds of detained immigrants in removal proceedings. Grisel also provided community presentations regarding constitutional rights when confronted by law enforcement and supervised law students in removal defense cases before the Executive Office for Immigration Review. She received an award from Cosmo for Latinas for this same work. Grisel is fluent in Spanish and graduated from the University of Chicago Law School where she received the Tony Patiño Fellowship. She attended the University of Notre Dame for her B.A.