Shabel Castro is a Foderaro Post-Conviction Litigation Fellow at the Innocence Project. She previously worked as a staff attorney with the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project at Brooklyn Defender Services, the first and largest public defender program in the country offering universal representation for low-income immigrants detained under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and facing deportation. Shabel was part of the inaugural class of the Black Defender Leadership Institute, which trains emerging Black advocates and supports them in becoming the next generation of leaders who are equipped to dismantle systems of racialized oppression.