Slava is a Government Strategies Immigration Lead in Fragomen’s Washington, DC office, where she works closely with clients to design and scale innovative models for humanitarian support for a range of organizations. Slava assists asylum seekers and their corporate, academic and foundation employers with issues concerning refugee resettlement and other humanitarian benefits, such as humanitarian parole, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) and family- and sponsorship-based parole programs. She has assisted numerous private companies, universities, nonprofit organizations and individuals from a wide range of countries, backgrounds and immigration situations. Slava strategizes on the best possible humanitarian pathways available; aids in the preparation of filings for asylum, humanitarian parole, TPS, SIV and adjacent benefits; prepares individuals for interviews; counsels attorneys on representation before USCIS; and conducts outreach to USCIS on behalf of her clients, where possible. She also provides consultations to attorneys across the firm when they require assistance with humanitarian pathways.

Slava joined Fragomen after 10 years with the USCIS refugee and asylum corps, where she served as an interviewing and supervisory adjudications officer in numerous overseas refugee processing locations in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, as well as a headquarters training officer and finally as a supervisory officer at San Francisco Asylum. During her years with the U.S. government, Slava interviewed refugees seeking resettlement to the U.S. and made decisions on their eligibility in a range of camp and urban settings, as well as war zones and other remote corners of the world. Prior to that, she was a private sector liaison at the International Organization for Migration, a Holocaust educator at the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation in Poland and a genocide researcher in Rwanda.

Because humanitarian work most often aims to help those who have the least resources, Slava has engaged in pro bono work in both primary and advisory capacities. She has assisted with inquiries related to refugee and asylum processes and has facilitated a training session for Fragomen attorneys who volunteered to represent clients in collaboration with the Church World Services nonprofit organization. Slava has also worked on individual asylum cases with attorneys from several Fragomen offices, ensuring complete and thorough filings.

Slava speaks English and Russian.