Patricia brings more than 20 years of digital and international business experience to her role as Vice President of the Workplace Initiative by Understood. She is an innovative and experienced executive with a track record of successfully leading teams in startup and enterprise settings to deliver in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Throughout her career, Patricia has launched and scaled a wide array of services, including the first large-scale internet banking and online brokerage service in Brazil. Patricia has also managed corporate digital business and product P&Ls for Santander Bank, among other Fortune 100 companies.

As the co-founder of two companies and leader of large (300+) teams, Patricia knows first-hand the value of building inclusive and efficient workplaces that embrace and promote diversity. As Vice President of the Workplace Initiative by Understood, Patricia has leveraged her knowledge and experience in developing and delivering digital products to drive innovation, scale, and social impact in the disability inclusion field. Under her leadership, the Workplace Initiative, by Understood, will launch a scalable framework that will allow organizations to implement disability inclusion initiatives nationwide."

Don Monica has been the Division Chief for Adjudications since April 2019. He manages a staff of subject matter experts at USCIS Headquarters who develop operational guidance to implement USCIS policy and assure adjudicative consistency across the five Service Centers.Prior to his current position, Mr. Monica spent four years as the Director of the USCIS Asia-Pacific District, where he had oversight of offices in Bangkok, Beijing, Guangzhou, Manila, New Delhi and Seoul. These offices adjudicated naturalization applications for United States military members and their spouses, refugee resettlement applications and family-based immigrant petitions.

Mr. Monica began his government service in 1980 with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and served in numerous adjudicative and enforcement positions. His duty stations included domestic postings in Champlain (NY), Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Philadelphia and Miami. Outside the United States, he served with INS in Toronto, Montreal, Nairobi and Moscow.

When INS was abolished 2003, Mr. Monica was posted to Chicago as the USCIS District Director and later served as a District Director in Philadelphia and Atlanta. In 2008 he transferred to Orlando as the Southeast Regional Director. He moved to the Field Operations Directorate at USCIS Headquarters in 2010, first as Deputy Associate Director and later as Associate Director, with management responsibility for 4,500 staff at over 100 domestic locations throughout the United States.

Mr. Monica is a native of Cleveland and graduated from Cleveland State University. He also holds an M.A. from the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto, Canada.

Mrs. Peters has worked with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) since October 2018. She previously worked for SHRM’s former affiliate the Council for Global Immigration (CFGI) in the Washington DC metro-area for nearly fifteen years, helping to advance high skilled immigration and employment verification reforms with the U.S. Congress, the White House and the federal agencies. She has served as a chair of the policy committee of the Compete America coalition. She also serves on other coalitions and working groups to educate and advance immigration system efficiencies and to ensure critical changes to employer immigration compliance are reasonable.

Bill Rabung is the Director of Operations, for the Office of Foreign Labor Certification.  In this position, he is responsible for the operations of the three OFLC National Processing Centers in Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington D.C.  He previously served as the National Director of the PERM program, the Director of the National Prevailing Wage Center, and several other management positions in the OFLC National Office. Bill has been with the U.S. Department of Labor for over 35 years, and has worked in a number of management positions within the Employment and Training Administration and Employment Standards Administration.  Bill is a multiple recipient of the Secretary’s Exceptional Achievement award, and he has made numerous national presentations and conducted workshops on labor force and performance topics.  Bill started his public service career with the State of California, Employment Development Department where he worked in a variety of programs including Unemployment Insurance, Job Service, and Labor Market Information.    

Lynden Melmed is a partner with Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP and oversees the firm’s compliance and government affairs practices. He counsels corporate clients on complex immigration matters, assists businesses in establishing and managing global immigration programs, and represents businesses in connection with audits and investigations by the federal government. He has served as immigration counsel in connection with several of the largest immigration investigations ever pursued by the federal government.

Before joining BAL, Lynden served as Chief Counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where he was a key advisor to senior leadership within USCIS, DHS, the White House, and other federal agencies on all aspects of immigration law. Lynden also served as Special Counsel to Senator John Cornyn, who was Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship; in that role, Lynden played a leading role in drafting and managing comprehensive immigration legislation.

Victoria Porto serves as the Executive Chief, Verification Division.  She leads a team of ~500 employees at five geographically disbursed locations in the managing and operations of two DHS national level programs:  E-Verify and Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), with a budget of over $172M.

Prior to this role, Porto was the deputy chief of the Office of Performance & Quality (OPQ), a position she assumed in September 2016.  In this role, she led OPQ’s staff of statisticians, adjudicators, and management program analysts in providing data and operational analyses to internal and external stakeholders.

During her tenure, she enhanced delivery of key enterprise services by developing Staffing Allocation Models (SAMs) in support of the agency’s Annual Operating Plan (AOP); eliminated the backlog of reports despite an increase of more than 20%; and co-chaired the Processing Times Technical Workgroup meetings that developed new calculation methods for measuring processing times using system of record information. The new approach pulls data directly from agency systems, is automated and more accurate, and allows for posting within 2 weeks instead of 6.  The USCIS Processing Times Working Group leveraged innovative technology and design to maximize resources, and save millions in monetary expenses.

Porto began her federal career with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in 2001 at the San Diego District Office and later worked at the California Service Center in Laguna Niguel, CA.  She held various positions in the field, including supervisory adjudications officer before she joined the DHS Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman’s Office in 2008.

In 2010, Porto served as a founding member of the USCIS Office of Public Engagement at Headquarters, and went on to serve as the first senior community relations officer. In this role, she spearheaded efforts to launch USCIS’ nationwide Enlace Público, a Spanish-language public engagement series; developed and implemented multiphase strategic plans that enhanced service, transparency; and strengthened relationships with federal partners. 

Additionally, Porto led the Field Operations Directorate’s (FOD) Transformation Division which included a geographically disperse team of subject matter experts as well as a leadership team in Washington, D.C. As FOD’s principal representative, she served as a consultant to the Office of Transformation and Coordination (OTC), and collaborated with USCIS colleagues to develop the USCIS Electronic Immigration System (USCIS ELIS).

In 2014, Porto served as a founding member of the USCIS Investor Program Office (IPO). Her work included workforce planning, designing and implementing operational processes, overseeing the development of standard operating procedures, and evaluating and assessing quality. 

Porto holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, a master’s degree in Public Administration from American University, and a Certificate in International Migration Studies from Georgetown University.
 

On Nov. 15, 2015, Matthew Emrich began serving as the associate director for the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS), where he leads more than 200 headquarters-based staff who issue operational guidance to more than 1,000 FDNS personnel in the field. In November 2012, Emrich was selected as the deputy associate director of FDNS.

Emrich has more than 25 years of immigration law enforcement and intelligence experience. He began his civilian government career in 1997 as a special agent for the Chicago District of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). While he served in the INS, Emrich’s criminal investigator assignments included the Lake County Repeat Offender Strike Force and the Anti-Smuggling Unit.

Immediately after 9/11, he was detailed to the National Security Unit at INS headquarters and later promoted to a position on the Chicago FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. Emrich also served as a supervisory special agent at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to help establish the first permanent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Visa Security Program post.

In February 2008, Emrich headed ICE’s headquarters-based analytic units as a deputy assistant director in ICE’s Office of Intelligence. In the aftermath of the 2009 Christmas Day attempted bombing by al-Qaeda of a commercial airliner, Emrich was selected as the chief of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Threat Task Force, which provided integrated intelligence and operational information to DHS leadership and components. In May 2010, Emrich was selected as the chief of the Intelligence Branch (later Division) in FDNS.

Emrich served for eight years on active duty in the Marine Corps in counterintelligence and infantry. He was also deployed to Baghdad, Iraq, as a contract senior human intelligence analyst for multinational forces.

Emrich has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice administration from Park University, a master’s degree in strategic intelligence from the National Intelligence University, and a graduate certificate in applied management from the Australian Institute of Police Management. He has been a member of the Senior Executive Service since November 2012.