H. Marissa Montes
Professor of Law and Director, Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic
H. Marissa Montes '12 is the director and co-founder of LIJC. 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 jointly awarded Loyola’s Public Interest Fellowship, to establish the clinic and develop its immigration-lawyering curriculum for law students. In addition to the clinic, Marissa teaches courses in regard to Cross-Cultural Competency and Trauma-Informed Lawyering, as well as spearheaded Loyola’s Immigration Law and Border Practicum, which includes an alternative spring break trip to El Paso, TX. Marissa serves as a visiting professor at the ITESO in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she teaches U.S. asylum law and serves migrant shelters. Marissa has been recognized as a Top Young Lawyer by the ABA (2017) and HNBA (2019). 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 received her B.A. in International Relations and Spanish from the University of Southern California and her J.D. from Loyola in 2012.
Eduardo Osornio
Guadalajara Director, Binational Migrant Advocacy Project
Eduardo Osornio earned his law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and later completed a master’s degree in State and Society at the Universidade Federal do Sul da Bahia in Brazil, where he was selected as an Organization of American States (OAS) scholarship recipient after winning a competitive research proposal. As programs director at HIAS Mexico, Osornio led humanitarian operations across 14 locations, coordinating more than 100 staff members and volunteers. Under his leadership, teams implemented large-scale, multi-sector responses funded by international partners. From 2020 to 2025, he worked closely with UNHCR and UNICEF to provide services to forcibly displaced people throughout Mexico. He served as a professor of international public law at ITAM and consulted for their Refugee Aid Clinic, coordinating research and academic publications on migration and refugee law. He is the author of multiple scholarly works on migration, detention conditions, and the principle of non-refoulement — scholarship that bridges academic inquiry with frontline realities.