Alexandra Dufresne is a Senior Policy Fellow at Connecticut Voices for Children. She is also a Lecturer in the Political Science Department at Yale, where she teaches undergraduate seminars in immigration and refugee law and policy. Before joining CT Voices, Alexandra served as the Dean of Morse College at Yale. From 2003-2005, she was the Catholic Legal Immigration Network detention attorney at Boston College Law School, where she supervised law students in the representation of low-income refugees and immigrants detained by the Department of Homeland Security. Alexandra has also worked as a litigation associate for several years at Latham & Watkins and Hale and Dorr and has volunteered at the Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center, the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First), and the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. In 2001-2002, Alexandra clerked for the Hon. Martha Craig Daughtrey of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Alexandra received a B.A. from Yale College in 1996 and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. She has also studied at the Colegio de México in Mexico City. In 2005, she was named the Detention Attorney of the Year by the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation (PAIR) Project in Boston and won the Avi Soifer prize at Boston College Law School for clinical teaching by a non-faculty member. Alexandra currently serves on the Board of IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services), a refugee resettlement nonprofit in New Haven. Alexandra is a member of the Bars of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois and the District of Columbia. She lives in Hamden, Connecticut with her husband, three children, and dog.

At CT Voices, Alexandra works on child welfare, K-12 education, juvenile justice, and immigrants' rights issues.

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Publications

July 2011	Are Connecticut Schools Meeting the Needs of Hispanic Students?
October 2010	Protecting Children and Youth in Connecticut's Child Welfare System
August 2010	Ensuring Educational Opportunity for All Connecticut Children
June 2010	Teaching Discipline: A Toolkit for Educators on Positive Alternatives to Out-of-School Suspensions
November 2009	School Stability Promotes Educational Opportunity for Connecticut's Children in Foster Care
September 2009	Improve Discipline and Academic Performance by Retaining Connecticut's School Suspensions Law
July 2009	The Canary in the Coal Mine: Publishing Truancy Data Will Help Keep Children in School
June 2009	Children in DCF Care Should Live in the "Least Restrictive Environment"
March 2009	Implement the Expansion of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction to Sixteen- and Seventeen-Year-Olds
March 2009	Foster Care/Child Welfare Budget in Context: An Analysis of the Governor's Proposed FY 10 Budget
February 2009	Fostering School Stability for Children in Connecticut's Care
August 2008	Missing Out: Suspending Students from Connecticut Schools