Spring 2025 Community Education Series: Immigration
The theme for our spring Community Education series is Immigration. A polarizing and profound issue facing our nation, the series explores how changing policies around immigration are impacting our community and our wider world.
Our March panel started locally, with a focus on enforcement issues. Our April panel will explore national policies and humanitarian concerns.
Watch the recorded video or listen to the discussion as a podcast:
About our program
Our March event provided perspectives on how local immigration enforcement is changing under President Trump. With a strong statement of Portland’s support for its immigrant population, the speakers shared about the rights immigrants have and how others can support their immigrant neighbors.
About our speakers
Assistant Chief Amanda McMillan
Amanda McMillan was appointed as Assistant Chief of the Investigations Branch on May 9, 2024. Prior to that, she had served as the Commander of the Professional Standards Division. Amanda was appointed to the Portland Place Bureau on November 29th, 2001. She finished her training and was assigned to Northeast Precinct.
In 2014, Amanda was promoted to sergeant and assigned to East Precinct and then the Professional Standards Division. In 2019, Amanda was promoted to Lieutenant and was assigned to the Youth Services Division, Drugs and Vice Division, the Detective Division and North Precinct. Amanda was promoted to Captain in 2022 and assigned to the Internal Affairs Division and then the next year, she was promoted to Commander.
Amanda earned Unit Commendation Medals for her work with the Emergency Operations Center, Behavioral Health Unit, Employee Assistance Program’s Peer Support Team and the Safety Team. She has also been a dedicated member of the Portland Police Honor Guard and guiding force with the Police Historical Society. Due to her efforts, she was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal. Amanda earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Seattle University and a Master’s in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga. She is also a recent graduate of the FBI Academy.
Isa Pena
Isa Peña is the Director of Strategy at Innovation Law Lab. Isa has been a long-time organizer and leader in the immigrant justice movement. She is a daughter of immigrants from Jalisco, Mexico. In her work she leverages her strengths and skills in relationship building, fundraising and policy advocacy to help advance immigrant justice.
Isa serves on the Executive teams of Oregon Worker Relief (OWR) and Oregon For All, two statewide coalitions who lead the charge in providing direct assistance and stewarding critical narrative change and statewide coordination to protect immigrant Oregonians. Isa is a Justice Fellow through Seeding Justice’s fellowship program which supports community organizers who have demonstrated radical love, resistance, and resilience in their work towards justice.
Elliott Young
Elliott Young is Professor in the History Department at Lewis and Clark College. Professor Young is the author of Forever Prisoners: How the United States Made the World’s Largest Immigrant Detention System (Oxford, 2021), Alien Nation: Chinese Migration in the Americas from the Coolie Era through WWII (UNC, 2014), and Catarino Garza’s Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border (Duke 2004), as well as co-editor of Continental Crossroads: Remapping US-Mexico Borderlands History (Duke, 2004).
He is co-founder of the Tepoztlán Institute for Transnational History of the Americas, the Migration Scholar Collaborative (MiSC) and the Migration and Asylum Lab (MAL) at Stanford University. He has also provided expert witness testimony for over 700 asylum cases. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Young’s opinion essays have appeared in the Washington Post, Time, the Houston Chronicle, and the Oregonian.
Mercedes Elizalde
Mercedes Elizalde was born and raised in California. She was the first in her family to attend college and earn both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. She carries a passion for social justice, equal opportunity and compassion throughout her personal and professional endeavors. She has spent time in her career as a direct service provider, case manager and program coordinator as well as in local government as the Policy and Engagement Strategist for Seattle City Councilmember Debora Juarez.
Mercedes is now the Director of Advocacy at the Latino Network leading a team of advocates and leadership development professionals, and is Board President at El Jardin Recovery and also serves on the board of the Nonprofit Association of Oregon and the Housing Development Center. Working at the intersection of direct service and public policy, Mercedes is able to combine her passions for community empowerment and addressing root causes of social issues.
About our programs
Join us for our next Community Education program, “Immigration: National Policy and Humanitarian Impacts” on Wednesday, April 9 from 7 to 8:30 pm via Zoom.
These programs are some of our community education programs held free of charge for our members and the public. All of our programs are recorded for rebroadcast by MetroEast Community Media and available by video and podcast from our website, lwvpdx.org.
Funding for production of this program is provided by the League of Women Voters of Portland Education Fund and the Carol and Velma Saling Foundation.