Amitesh Parikh is a Senior Staff Attorney at Immigration Equality where he advocates for LGBTQ and PLHIV immigrants seeking safe haven in the United States through policy advocacy, mentorship of pro bono attorneys, and direct representation. Prior to joining Immigration Equality, Amitesh was a Senior Associate at a high-volume immigration law firm where he worked on direct representation of clients in affirmative and defensive human rights, family, and business-based immigration applications. As a Senior Associate, he focused his work on waivers of inadmissibility and responses to complex Requests for Evidence. He was also a Policy Fellow at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, where he worked on expanding the definition of sex discrimination, and a legal fellow at Transparency International USA, where he worked on issues around third-party anti-corruption due diligence. Amitesh is a graduate of Duke University School of Law and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin in Government and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. He speaks Russian, Hindi, Gujarati, and Urdu.