About Rachel Mendoza-Newton

A Louisville, KY native, Ms. Mendoza-Newton obtained her BA at Smith College in Northampton, MA. Before law school, she volunteered full-time for a year at Casa Marianella, a shelter for Latin American refugees and the Spanish-speaking homeless in Austin, TX. She earned her JD in 1997 at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, MA.

Ms. Mendoza-Newton is fluent in Spanish. She practiced immigration law at Proyecto Libertad in Harlingen, TX, the International Institute of Buffalo in NY, and Ahmad Law Office in Lexington, KY, before joining RILF in December 2008. She also defended immigrants from criminal charges in her work with the New Mexico Public Defender’s Office.

A member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and various immigrant rights advocacy groups, Ms. Mendoza-Newton has been interviewed about immigration issues by multiple Kentucky media outlets. She has fiercely advocated for immigrant and refugee rights for many years, most notably in the defeat of SB6, the Kentucky bill that would have been the equivalent of Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant law. Her practice focuses primarily on U visas (for crime victims), family-based immigration, naturalization, asylum, and defending immigrants in the Immigration Court. Ms. Mendoza-Newton particularly enjoys helping abused, victimized, or oppressed people to take back power over their own lives, and deeply values the privilege of watching them flower into strength and independence as their cases move forward.