Lucas Aisenberg

Lucas is a Clinical Supervising Attorney in the Immigration Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center. He received a B.A. in Political Science at the University of Houston and a J.D. from St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami Gardens, Florida. In his current position in the Immigration Clinic, Professor Aisenberg supervises law students on pro bono asylum cases and provides direct representation to adult immigrants and unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the United States. Prior to joining the Immigration Clinic, Professor Aisenberg was a staff attorney at Catholic Charities Community Services Unaccompanied Minors Program in New York City. At Catholic Charities, he provided direct representation to unaccompanied minors detained in Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters, as well as non-detained clients in Immigration Court and before the New York and New Jersey Asylum Offices.

Samantha Del Bosque, Supervising Attorney, Tahirih Justice Center

Samantha Del Bosque is a graduate of the University of Houston Law Center, where she participated in the Immigration Law Clinic. Samantha joined the Tahirih Justice Center April 2012; she represents people who are fleeing gender-based violence. Prior to working with Tahirih, she worked with Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston. Samantha currently serves as the local Asylum Liaison for the Texas/Oklahoma/New Mexico Chapter of AILA. She is also the chair of the Houston Immigration Legal Coordinating Council’s Asylum Thinktank. She has also served on the AILA National Committee on Asylum and Refugees. Samantha frequently speaks at conferences and CLEs on the various topics, including humanitarian immigration protection, gender-based violence, and working with survivors of trauma. Before going to law school, Samantha taught Spanish to disadvantaged and at-risk children in the Houston area. Samantha is fluent in French and in Spanish.

Ed Gallagher

Ed Gallagher is a professor of practice at Sam Houston State University in the College of Criminal Justice and an adjunct at the University of Houston Law Center, where he teaches Human Trafficking Law. Ed has been teaching this course as an adjunct for over 11 years. He recently retired from the Department of Justice where he worked for over 37 years, 5 years as an FBI agent in Houston, and 32 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Houston office of the Southern District of Texas. Ed helped create the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance (HTRA) in 2004 and was a driving force in coordinating federal, state, and local law enforcement working with NGOs and local advocacy groups in the rescue of victims and criminal prosecution of traffickers for 12 years.  

Jennifer Hill, Assistant Executive Director of The Children’s Assessment Center

Jennifer Hill is the Assistant Executive Director of The Children’s Assessment Center and has been working with victims for over a decade.  Jennifer is also a lawyer and graduated with her J.D. from Texas Tech School of Law.  

After law school Jennifer worked as a criminal prosecutor and as Child Protective Services attorney in Montgomery County, Texas.  Jennifer continued her work as felony prosecutor at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in the Special Victims Unit in child sexual abuse cases and the Trial Bureau. She has handled over 40 trials during her career and worked on thousands of cases involving victims and their families. At The CAC she continues serving her community through her work with child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking. Jennifer oversees External Affairs, Outreach, Trafficking, and Training efforts at The CAC and is a trained facilitator for prevention trainings in local schools. She is committed to helping as many children and families in Harris County as possible. 

Kimberly Leo

Currently she is an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas. She is assigned to the Human Rights/Organized Crime section in the Houston Division where she handles child exploitation and sex trafficking cases. She has been in that section since July of 2015. She has been the Project Safe Childhood (PSC) Coordinator for the district since November of 2017. In that role, she provides training to other AUSAs in the district and assists them with their PSC investigations and cases.

From September of 2008 until July of 2015, she worked in the branch office in the McAllen Division where she handled immigration and narcotic cases along with child exploitation cases.

Prior to that she was an Assistant District Attorney for the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office from May of 2001 until September of 2008. During that time, she handled various cases which included murders, aggravated sexual assaults, indecency with children, aggravated robbery cases and burglary cases. Her area of expertise as an ADA was with sex crimes.

She had a one year clerkship for the Honorable William C. Meehan, Presiding Criminal Judge in Bergen County Superior Court in Hackensack, New Jersey.

She graduated from The Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University in 1999 and from Cedar Crest College in 1996. She is licensed in Texas, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Teresa Messer

Teresa Messer is the Director and Professor of Practice of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center. Professor Messer’s own experience as the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants cultivated her desire to assist other immigrants early on in her life. This desire ultimately led her to her calling – to help immigrants navigate through the complexities of U.S. Immigration and Nationality Law. Professor Messer’s immigration legal experience, commitment to her clients, and dedication to the legal profession has been recognized by the State Bar of Texas, Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, Houstonia Magazine, H Texas Magazine, and Texas Lawyer Magazine. Professor Messer has written several immigration legal articles which have appeared in publications such as the Texas Bar Journal, Law360, and the University of Houston’s Online Law Journal. She has presented on immigration law topics for organizations such as the State Bar of Texas, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Katy Bar Association, and the Houston Northwest Bar Association. Prior to joining the Immigration Clinic, Professor Messer was a private practice attorney focusing exclusively on immigration law.

Parker Sheffy

Professor Parker Sheffy is a staff member of the UH Law Center’s award-winning Immigration Clinic. His work encompasses representing indigent individuals with immigration-based legal cases while simultaneously supervising and teaching law students in connection with those very cases. Mr. Sheffy represents clients with disparate immigration-based needs, including issues at the intersections of family law and immigration law, as well as criminal law and immigration law. He is active within the Greater-Houston immigration legal services community and contributes scholarship to the field. Prior to joining the Law Center in Spring 2022, Mr. Sheffy worked as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Cardozo School of Law in New York City. He began his career in legal education at the University of Houston Law Center as a Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Immigration Clinic in the fall of 2019. He has been published in an academic law journal and contributes to local and national media coverage pertaining to immigration-based legal and policy issues.

Torrence White

Torrence White entered on duty with the FBI in 2008 and was first assigned to the Memphis Field Office. While assigned to Memphis, Torrence re-initiated and coordinated Memphis Cargo Theft Task Force in 2010 with emphasis on violent crime and major theft. In 2012, he returned to full-time duties with the Memphis JTTF until his selection and reassignment to the Attorney General’s Protection Detail. In 2015, Torrence was promoted to Supervisory Special Agent and transferred to the Security Division and the Protective Operations Unit, where he managed the protective intelligence for all FBI protectees which included DOJ & FBI Senior Executives and threatened employees. In 2017, Torrence was promoted to Unit Chief of the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) Critical Incident and Operations Unit (CIOU) which oversees the FBIHQ response in support of Field Office Crisis Management operations. Torrence also oversaw the program management of all 56 Field Office Operations Centers. In 2019, Torrence was selected as the Violent Crime Task Force Supervisory Special Agent where he oversees joint operations with the FBI, Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Houston Police Department, and Texas Department of Public Safety on violent crime matters. After two years of managing the Violent Crimes Task Force, Torrence was selected to manage the FBI Houston Human Intelligence Squad where he managed  Special Agents and Intelligence Analysts Officers. Since November 2022, Torrence has managed the FBI Houston Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force comprised of Special Agents and Task Force Officers responsible for investigating, apprehending and prosecuting crimes of violence against children to include kidnappings, abductions, child pornography, human trafficking, and international parental kidnapping etc.