Honoring our Founder

A native of the Bronx, New York, Milagros S. Cruz is of Puerto Rican descent, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and the University of Connecticut School of Law.

For more than a decade she was a trial advocate for children and families;eventually she pivoted and focused on advocating for the immigrant community.She practiced immigration law for 19 years. In 2014, she founded the Immigration Law Committee of the Connecticut Bar Association. She also served two terms as the Hartford Immigration Court liaison for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Connecticut Chapter. As President of the Connecticut Hispanic Bar Association, she led a successful legislative campaign to obtain funding for civil courts to provide litigants with access to Spanish language interpreters.

In 2013, seeing a need for immigrants—from all parts of the world—to access culturally appropriate counseling to launch and sustain small business ventures,she co-founded the non-profit agency International Hartford, along with its founding executive director, Art Feltman. Milagros led the organization for many years as its board chair and is responsible for its initiation, success and growth.