Juliana Pérez Calle

Juliana Pérez Calle was born in the lush andean “City of Eternal Spring,” Medellín, Colombia, and raised to love the gritty grey blues of the North East Atlantic in New York. Before becoming an attorney, Juliana was an undocumented student activist, advocating for comprehensive immigration reform and the rights of undocumented immigrants on Long Island. She now Directs the Post Order Defense Team, providing critical legal defense for immigrants with removal orders who are at imminent risk of detention and/or deportation. Juliana has extensive experience in immigration law, representing clients in Immigration Court, the BIA, federal courts, and before USCIS. She is deeply committed to cross-team collaboration and community-based advocacy, believing in the power of self-sustaining social capital within directly impacted communities—rejecting the notion of “trickle-down” change in favor of grassroots power.

In addition to her work at UnLocal, Juliana is an adjunct professor at CUNY Hunter College. While in law school, she focused her legal research on corporate accountability for human rights abuses both abroad and in the U.S., including issues related to ICE detention centers and the real estate tax schemes that support them, as well as the broader problem of arbitrary detention. Juliana holds a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law and a B.A. in Psychology from Stony Brook University.