Josephine Arroyo, attorney, The Arroyo Law Firm

Josephine Arroyo is admitted to practice in the Florida and U.S. Middle District Court of Florida. She received her Master of Laws (LL.M. degree) at The George Washington University Law School and holds a Juris Doctorate from Florida A&M University College of Law, where she graduated as Valedictorian of her class.

In 2021, she was honored in Orlando Business Journal’s as one of the 2021 Women Who Mean Business. In 2017, she was appointed to serve on the City of Orlando, Mayor’s Green Works Task Force. She was recognized by U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Kissimmee, as a community leader as a part of Hispanic Heritage month.

She has worked as an associate attorney in trial litigation and has assisted her husband, Phillip Arroyo, on criminal cases since he began his criminal defense career. She has always been a fighter for justice and brings her passion to criminal defense. She cares about being the voice of the most vulnerable and recognizes the injustices within the criminal justice system. She has served as a volunteer attorney for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, helping formerly incarcerated individuals restore their right to vote.

She also is an assistant professor, teaching law and ethics at Rollins College in the Department of Social Entrepreneurship. Arroyo also has received three teaching awards — the Hugh F. McKean Award, an Outstanding Faculty Award and the Walter E. Barden Distinguished Teaching Award.

Ericka Gómez-Tejeda, Hope CommUnity Center

Cka Gómez-Tejeda, Organizing Director for the Hope CommUnity Center 

Ericka Gómez-Tejeda is a Colombian immigrant, labor leader and community organizer whose life work has been shaped by her relationships with immigrant families, workers and faith communities committed to dignity, justice and opportunity. She serves as organizing director for the Hope CommUnity Center. She also coordinates the Immigrants Are Welcome Here Coalition (IAWH).

Over her 33-year organizing career, she has reshaped economic policies for college students, won homeownership for South Bronx renters and helped in passing four living-wage laws in New York. During 19 years as a labor leader in the United States, Colombia and Puerto Rico, she helped improve working standards for 35,000 mostly immigrant and Black women workers in the private, healthcare and service sectors.

In 2021, Ericka co-founded Hablamos Español Florida with Hispanic faith, labor and community leaders, ensuring access to COVID vaccines, hurricane response services, mental health resources and voting for more than 7,000 Spanish-speaking residents. She also helped cultivate Spanish-speaking leaders to engage the Hispanic community in the successful campaigns for language access, tenant protections and rent control.

As coordinator of the IAWH Coalition, she stewards a compassionate alliance of 70 organizations that are advancing the rights, protections and well-being of immigrant communities through community care, effective policy advocacy and community defense that stands up to ICE and ensures due process and political accountability.

She serves on the boards of the Florida Immigrant Coalition and Working Families Power. Her organizing has been recognized nationally, internationally and in the U.S. Congressional Record in 2017 and 2026.

Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel reporter



Ryan Gillespie has been a local government reporter at the Orlando Sentinel for more than 10 years.

He has reported on nearly every community in Central Florida and on a range of topics from local politics and homelessness to immigration.

Gillespie is a University of Central Florida graduate and is from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Professor Kate Aschenbrenner, Barry University

Kate Aschenbrenner joined Barry University School of Law as an assistant professor in the summer of 2009. She created and currently directs a new Immigration Clinic and teaches immigration law.

Prior to coming to Barry, Aschenbrenner taught for two years as a clinical fellow in the Center for Applied Legal Studies, the clinic that represents asylum seekers at Georgetown University Law Center.

She also has worked in the Immigration Clinic at St. Thomas University School of Law and as an immigration staff attorney with St. Thomas University's Human Rights Institute and Gulfcoast Legal Services. Immediately after law school, she clerked for Judge Jack B. Weinstein at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Aschenbrenner is a member of the New York and New Jersey Bars. She graduated magna cum laude with honors from Knox College and cum laude from New York University School of Law.