This year, the Advocates of the Year Award recognizes a multi-firm team of pro bono attorneys who demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to advocacy in support of trafficking survivors’ rights. In February 2026, the Human Trafficking Legal Center contacted Jenner & Block LLP, the Rozas Law Firm, and Nixon Peabody LLP to request emergency assistance for a trafficking survivor illegally detained by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). The survivor, a young Venezuelan mother, was attending a routine check-in appointment. Her arrest separated her from her two small children, one of them a nursing infant. When informal advocacy with the Department of Homeland Security failed to secure the trafficking survivor’s release, these three pro bono law firms leapt into action. Their powerful legal advocacy provided critical support and hope to a trafficking survivor swept into terrifying circumstances beyond her control. The survivor had already suffered forced labor, violence, and sexual servitude in the United States at the hands of her trafficker. Immigration detention only exacerbated that harm.

Sam White led the charge at Jenner & Block, assembling an all-star legal team overnight and preparing a federal habeas petition, an order to show cause, and a motion to proceed pseudonymously, all within a matter of days. Sam, joined by partner Samuel Feder, and associates Katharine Garcia, Mackenzie Gettel, and Pro Bono Counsel Nura Maznavi, skillfully crafted compelling arguments to demand the client’s immediate release. Sam White and Katherine Garcia traveled to Louisiana for oral argument on the eve of the federal court hearing.

Throughout the process, David Rozas and Associate Logan Duplessis of the Rozas Law Firm provided key insights into local practice in Louisiana. David and Logan guided the pro bono team through the local rules, filing multiple motions and briefs in court over just a few short days. That frenetic pace, made possible by the Rozas Law Firm’s capacity to file around the clock, left no government filing unanswered.

Rachel Winkler and her team at Nixon Peabody successfully defended the survivor against deportation in removal proceedings. Rachel and her colleagues filed a motion to terminate removal proceedings, providing this trafficking survivor with an essential defense in immigration court.

On the morning of oral argument, perhaps convinced that the government would lose, the local U.S. Attorney’s office ordered ICE to release the survivor and reunite her with her children. After two months of detention and multiple petitions for her release, the trafficking survivor at last returned to her home.