Elsa Maria Mota is a Bertha Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she specializes in advocating for immigrant rights and racial justice by challenging government misconduct and abusive immigration practices.

 

Elsa was born to Dominican immigrants and is a first-generation college student. She holds a B.A. in Criminology & Law and a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Florida and is a 2020 graduate of Yale Law School.

 

Elsa’s interests lie at the intersection of empowering marginalized communities, building infrastructure for opportunity, and racial justice. Her work is inspired by her experience in diverse, low-income communities who creatively fight against systems of oppression to seize opportunities. During law school, she worked with the Community Justice Project in Miami, The Bronx Defenders immigration defense practice, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Yale’s Educational Opportunity and Juvenile Justice Clinic, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), and volunteered with asylum seekers through ASAP. During law school she also conducted research on the intersection of human rights and plea bargaining in Uganda.