Ali Procopio

Ali Procopio is University Program Director for FWD.us, a bipartisan political organization focused on fixing the failed immigration and criminal justice systems that have locked too many out of the American dream for too long. Having developed her own passion for advocacy and immigration reform while in college, Ali is thrilled to be working with students, faculty, and staff to improve higher education opportunities for immigrant students and to fight for a more just immigration system. Her work centers around developing resources and advocacy opportunities for students and allies to engage at the federal, state, and campus levels. Ali graduated from Dartmouth College in 2013 with a degree in Italian.

Dr. Laura Emiko Soltis

Dr. Laura Emiko Soltis serves as the Executive Director at Freedom University, an underground school for undocumented students in Atlanta. Born in rural Minnesota, Emiko was raised in a biracial Japanese/Slovak household and developed passions for working-class politics and music performance in equal measure. Emiko's early work experiences in low-wage industries alongside diverse immigrants in restaurant work, janitorial services, and farm labor inspired her to study interracial labor movements and human rights. Emiko graduated from the University of Georgia in 2006 and received her Ph.D. in 2012 from Emory University, where she wrote her dissertation on an interracial migrant farmworker movement led by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in South Florida. After the closing of Freedom University in Athens by its founding faculty, Emiko re-opened Freedom University in Atlanta in September 2014. As the organization's first Executive Director, Emiko introduced the human rights framework to the center of its mission, expanded the curriculum to include the arts and social justice leadership training, and began connecting undocumented youth to veterans of the Black Freedom Movement. Emiko works to advance the undocumented student movement by educating and mentoring a new generation of undocumented freedom fighters and advocating for fair admissions policies in higher education across the United States. At Freedom University, Emiko continues to serve as the Professor of Human Rights, teaching classes in international human rights, social movement theory, and immigration history. As an organizer, Emiko has engaged in numerous direct actions for workers’ rights and immigrant justice, and has been arrested four times in the Kingian tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience. Emiko is also an accomplished violinist, photographer, and sings with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus.

Arelis Palacios, M.S.

Prior to joining Freedom University’s team, Arelis served as the inaugural Director of Undocumented Student Services at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In that role, she implemented a comprehensive institutional engagement strategy with senior campus leadership, business leaders, non-profit stakeholders, local government, and various members of Congress across different coalition-building campaigns in support of permanent protections for undocumented youth and families.

As a native Nicaraguan who grew up in Miami, Florida, the realities of immigration were ever-present in her upbringing and classroom as a formerly undocumented person herself, and helped to refine her interest in supporting immigrant and underrepresented students along secondary and tertiary education. Arelis has focused on the intersections of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and K-16 educational policies, and has worked vigorously to help universities implement their own policies to promote diversity, access, and inclusion for undocumented youth. She is presently a doctoral student in the Educational Policy and Planning program at the University of Texas at Austin, and holds a M.S. in Higher Education Administration and a B.A. in English Literature from Florida State University.