Chair, Nelly Jimenez Arevalo serves as the Community Education Coordinator at Maternal & Child Health Consortium of Chester County. She also worked for Congreso de Latinos Unidos for 6 years. She was born and raised in Venezuela and has lived in the United States since 1999. She holds a Law Degree and post-graduate degree in business law from Santa Maria University. She has worked in the social service field for over 12 years, using her legal background to advocate for change for the Latino and other immigrant communities.

Vice Chair, Brad Baldia is the Director of Development & Outreach for United Communities Southeast Philadelphia. A second generation Filipino-American, he works extensively with Asian community organizations on a local and national level, such as the Pan Asian Association of Greater Philadelphia and the National Association of Asian American Professionals. He serves on various boards including the Multicultural Affairs Congress (Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau), the Enterprise Center and the Filipino American National Historical Society. He is a member of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Asian American & Pacific Islander Advisory Committee, and the Mayor’s Commission on Asian American Affairs.

Vice Chair, Nadia Hewka is the supervising attorney in Community Legal Services' Employment Unit, where she represents low-income Philadelphians, including immigrants, in employment disputes. The child of Ukrainian immigrants, Nadia has worked with PICC since 2003 on immigration reform and immigrant workers' rights issues.

Treasurer, Dennis Mulligan is the Executive Director of Nationalities Service Center, managing one of the major non-profit immigration social and legal service providers in the region. Before joining NSC he ran a non-profit immigration and refugee services program in Trenton. A dual citizen of the USA and Ireland, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Chad (Central Africa) and lived in Africa for 2 1/2 years. In addition to his Peace Corps service, he has traveled extensively in West, Central and East Africa.

Secretary, Maggie Niebler has worked closely with non-profit immigration legal service providers in South Jersey and Pennsylvania since 2000. Prior to attending law school, she was a Board of Immigration Appeals Accredited Representative with the Camden Center for Law and Social Justice. Maggie has worked as an attorney at HIAS and Council since 2005, as an Independence Fellow from 2005- 2007, focusing on representation of survivors of domestic violence, crime victims and children – especially those in juvenile detention facility and domestic violence shelters in Berks and Chester Counties. She continues to focus on representing immigrant children who are separated from their families due to abuse, delinquency, abandonment and/or neglect and co-chairs PICC’s Immigrant Youth Committee.

Dr. Nina Ahmad, a native of Bangladesh, moved to the United States as a young adult. She has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and works in the biotechnology field as a scientist and small business owner. She is active in the Asian American community of Philadelphia and the Tri-state area. She works to further democracy amongst underrepresented groups at the local, state and federal levels. She was one of the founding members of Asian Pacific Americans for Progress, a grassroots, internet-empowered, national network. In January 2009, Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia appointed her as the Chair of the newly reconstituted Commission on Asian American Affairs, which has 25 members and functions as a conduit between the City Government and our rapidly growing Asian American population.

David Bennion is a staff attorney at Nationalities Service Center, providing legal representation for low income immigrants. After two years in the corporate sector, during which he represented immigrants through Legal Aid’s pro bono program, Dave worked as an immigration attorney for the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens. He began blogging about immigrant rights in 2006 and continues to engage in online advocacy on various websites. He is currently working with local students to support their efforts to use online organizing to build a local chapter of the national, youth led DREAMActivist network.

Carlos Cartagena is the Manager of Community Initiatives for Npower, which helps nonprofits with their technology needs. Both of his parents migrated from Puerto Rico in the 1950’s and 60’s.  He has helped to organize around public safety issues impacting immigrant communities in South Philadelphia. He has over ten years of experience in the human service field, working for local organizations including Congreso de Latinos Unidos, United Communities of Southeast Philadelphia, and Philadelphia Health Management Corporation.

Liz Chacko is a second-generation American whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from India. Liz is a Staff Attorney at Friends of Farmworkers; for the past three years she has represented low-wage immigrant and migrant workers with employment-related issues, mainly in central and southeastern Pennsylvania. Liz is especially interested in strengthening PICC’s ties in Central PA. Formerly, she spent three years working for a legal services organization in Boston, representing many immigrants in family law and domestic violence matters, with a focus on the Dominican and Cambodian communities. She is an active member of the South Asian Bar Association and South Asian Americans Leading Together.

Nancy MacEoin has worked as an Assistant Defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia since graduating Temple Law School in 2003, representing low-income clients in criminal cases. She works on the Immigration Project at the Defender Association, giving her a unique perspective on how the criminal justice system impacts not just criminal defendants, but the larger immigrant community as well. Prior to attending law school, she worked for five years as a paralegal at Nevada Legal Services in Las Vegas, Nevada, representing low-income individuals, including immigrants, in landlord/tenant matters, public housing, public benefits and unemployment claims.

Hirotoshi Nishikawa is the grandson of Japanese immigrants that came to the United States in the late 1890’s. He has grandchildren who are gosei, or fifth generation Americans of Japanese ancestry. He is an active member of the Japanese American Citizens League at the Philadelphia chapter level as well as the National Board level. In the last ten years, he has become increasingly interested in immigration reform issues, drawing on the history of internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two. In 2007, he participated in the Dreams Across America campaign, joining PICC colleagues in Philadelphia and traveling to Washington, DC.

Maripat Pileggi has been a public benefits attorney at Community Legal Services since July 2007, representing low-income clients at the Department of Public Welfare and Social Security Administration. She spends Wednesday evenings working at a medical clinic in Chinatown, helping patients navigate complex healthcare systems in order to get the care they urgently need. Maripat has worked with PICC’s Healthcare Committee on issues of access and to expand interpretation and translation services provided at medical clinics throughout Philadelphia. Prior to law school, she taught English as a second language to adult immigrants at NSC.

Meredith Rapkin is the Acting Director of the Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic at Villanova University School of Law. Prior to that, she served as a public interest immigration attorney at HIAS and Council Migration Service, in part through a fellowship from the Independence Foundation of Philadelphia. She holds a law degree from Temple University as well as Bachelors and Masters Degree in Middle East Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Meredith works primarily with Spanish speaking communities, and she has developed expertise in immigration law for immigrant children, immigrant victims or witnesses of violent crimes, and immigrant women experiencing domestic violence. Meredith co-chairs PICC’s Public Safety Committee.

Art Read has advocated for rights of workers for the past 30 years. Since 1979 he has concentrated on representation of farmworkers and since 1982 has been General Counsel at Friends of Farmworkers. He is very active in workers’ rights and language access in the courts.

Natalia Salgado came to the US from Colombia as a child with her parents, older brother and sister. She grew up in North Philadelphia as part of the Latino immigrant community. In the past, she has worked for Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations, doing community outreach, and on the campaign of Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez. Natalia was part of the response to anti-immigrant ordinances in Northeastern Pennsylvania, helping to coordinate a prayer vigil in the city of Hazleton. Currently, Natalia is the Mid-Atlantic Political Director for SEIU Local 32BJ, helping union members, including immigrant workers in Southeastern Pennsylvania, to become involved in the political process.  

Marla Soffer has been in practice in excess of twenty years and is associated with the law firm of Weinstein, Schleifer & Kupersmith, P.C.  For the past ten years, she has conducted programs in Spanish, and served as an advisor to the constituents of the Mexican Consulate in Philadelphia, in workers’ rights and general personal injury matters. Marla works as a pro-bono attorney and volunteer for various non-profit organizations.

PICC's Board of Directors is elected by the membership at our annual meeting. Each director serves an initial term of three years, and is then eligible for re-election.