People

Michele Garnett McKenzie

Michele Garnett McKenzie shares responsibility for leading The Advocates for Human Rights and ensuring the organization fulfills its mission to promote civil society and reinforce the rule of law. As Interim Co-Executive Director, she is also responsible for financial management and organizational operations. Michele also continues to lead The Advocates' immigration legal services, advocacy, and pro bono teams.

Michele joined The Advocates' staff in 1999 as an attorney representing asylum seekers and detained immigrants and later managed the organization's immigration legal services program. Michele has documented and reported on human rights issues and is the author of publications on human trafficking and immigrant rights. Most recently, Michele led the organization's domestic advocacy and communications strategy, successfully working to create transformative policy change.  

Michele has served on the national leadership team of the Immigration Advocates Network. the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault public policy committee, the Minnesota Human Trafficking Task Force, and as chair of Detention Watch Network. She is admitted to practice in the State of Minnesota and has worked as an adjunct clinical faculty member of Mitchell Hamline College of Law and the University of Minnesota Law School.

Michele believes that everyone has a right to live with dignity and that by centering human rights in public policy, we can make that a reality.  

Prior to joining The Advocates, Michele was in private immigration practice and served as a judicial law clerk for the Executive Office for Immigration Review in Arizona and Nevada. She received her J.D. cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School and her B.A. cum laude from Macalester College.

Publications

• Human Rights Tools for a Changing World - UN Advocacy
  January 29, 2024
• Immigration Court Observation Project Issue Brief: Unaccompanied Children
  October 4, 2023
• Human Rights Tools for a Changing World - National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs)
  November 4, 2022
• Seeking Release from Immigration Custody
  October 24, 2022
• Immigration Detention and COVID-19: Illuminating Human Rights Concerns in Minnesota Jails
  March 1, 2021
• Bearing Witness in the Moment: Report from the Immigration Court Observation Project
  January 1, 2020
• Safe Harbor for All: Strategic Planning Process Report
  October 1, 2018
• Discover Human Rights: A Human Rights Approach to Social Justice
  May 1, 2017
• Asking the Right Questions: A Human Rights Approach to Ending Trafficking and Exploitation in the Workplace
  January 1, 2016
• Human Rights Tools for a Changing World: A step-by-step guide to human rights fact-finding, documentation, and advocacy
  January 1, 2015
• Paving Pathways for Justice & Accountability: Human Rights for Diaspora Communities
  January 1, 2014
• Moving from Exclusion to Belonging: Immigrant Rights in Minnesota Today
  April 1, 2013
• Safe Harbor: Fulfilling Minnesota's Promise to Protect Sexually Exploited Youth
  February 1, 2013
• A Practitioner’s Guide to Human Rights Monitoring, Documentation and Advocacy
  January 3, 2011
• Human Rights in Ethiopia: Through the Eyes of the Oromo Diaspora
  December 1, 2009
• A House with Two Rooms: Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia Diaspora Project
  January 1, 2009

News

• New Report Details Due Process Failures for Kids in Immigration Court
  October 4, 2023