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As New Bedford’s immigrant community braces against the threat of Trump administration deportations, its main local advocate, the Immigrants’ Assistance Center, has been in turmoil.
The chair of the board of directors just resigned. The IAC president has faced questions about her management practices, and in turn urged the board to choose between her and the new executive director, who surrendered her law license years ago amid allegations of misappropriating client funds and other misconduct in Texas.
The just-departed board chair, Laurie Bullard, and IAC President Helena DaSilva Hughes have clashed lately, but they’ve united for years on the mission, which DaSilva Hughes said is too important — especially now — to risk being hampered by in-house conflict.
“We need to all stay focused on the work we are doing,” said DaSilva Hughes, who has been with the organization since 1984, including 29 years as executive director, nearly four as president. “This population needs our work more than ever.”
She said the dispute at the top so far has not hindered the IAC’s work, only adding “another layer of stress that is unnecessary” during a particularly stressful time.
Established in 1971, the IAC is now operating with a staff of 10 and a budget of about $700,000, DaSilva Hughes said. The IAC provides a wide array of services, from helping people know their legal rights, find housing and work, navigate the immigration system and become a citizen.
Bullard said the executive director, Anne Ohlrich, named to the position last October, brings administrative and grant-writing skills that complement DaSilva Hughes’s strengths as a public voice and longtime face of the organization.
DaSilva Hughes — who was nudged out as executive director when Ohlrich was promoted last fall — acknowledged that administrative detail is not her own forte. Still, she argued that Ohlrich’s disbarment from immigration law practice should bar her from a top IAC job.
In a letter The Light received on Wednesday, the board of directors expressed support for Ohlrich, arguing that her past matters less than her “ability to serve the organization effectively.”
The Supreme Court of Texas, on Aug. 23, 2019, issued an order accepting Ohlrich’s resignation of her law license in lieu of discipline, barring her from practicing law in the state, and ordering her to pay $96,500 in restitution as a condition of reinstatement. In November 2019, in light of the Texas order, the U.S. Department of Justice issued an order disbarring her from practice before federal agencies that handle immigration cases.
The Texas order is not the same as disbarment, but the Texas Code of Disciplinary Procedure for lawyers says that resignations in lieu of discipline “shall be treated as disbarment for all purposes.” The Justice Department order says Ohlrich is “disbarred.”
Ohlrich said in an interview that she resigned her law license in the summer of 2019 after clients brought grievances against her. She said while she was on medical leave for five weeks in June and July 2019, subordinates at her small San Antonio, Texas, law firm took money from a client trust account and worked cases they were not qualified to take.
Ohlrich said no one at the IAC made a fuss about her background when she was hired as development director, or when she was promoted to executive director last October. She said she is not handling legal matters, or the organization checkbook, and has been open with the IAC board and staff about her history.
“I have never made any attempt to hide, lie, or obfuscate what happened — that’s not who I am,” Ohlrich said in an email to The Light early this month.
Losing a champion on the board of directors
By several accounts, Ohlrich appeared before the board to tell her background story when she was hired as development director in February 2023. IAC board and former staff members said they’ve heard different versions of the story, and at least two did their own online searches.
Only one current board member, Rosemary Neto Hazzard, has spoken briefly for this story, so it’s not clear what information board members knew when, or what if any concerns they may have about this. Other board members declined to return messages seeking comment for this story.
One honorary board member, local immigration lawyer Fred Watt, said in an interview that he expressed concerns in a phone conversation with Bullard about how Ohlrich’s background could reflect on the image of the IAC before Ohlrich was promoted to executive director. Asked about that conversation, Bullard said Watt expressed no concerns.
This much is clear: Ohlrich has lost a champion on the board in Bullard, who had served on the board since 2016, with about a year off in 2022 and the first half of 2023. Her support for Ohlrich had been part of her effort to shore up IAC administration and financial management.
On the evening of Feb. 18, at the board’s second emergency meeting this month, Bullard said she stayed for about an hour, then told the board she would be resigning from the IAC.
In an interview with The Light the following morning, Bullard said she has decided that at 77 years of age, after serving on the board for about eight years in two separate stints, she wants to take time for her grandchildren and traveling with her husband, former New Bedford Mayor John Bullard.
She expressed her full support for Ohlrich, who was hired as development director after working for the IAC for about two months as a volunteer grant writer. She said Ohlrich has been forthcoming about her background.
Bullard said that whatever happened in Texas, everyone deserves a second chance. She said she is concerned not with the past, but with what Ohlrich brings to the organization now: an abiding commitment to the mission and formidable grant-writing and administrative ability.
Bullard said Ohlrich — who practiced law for 14 years, worked for the U.S. State Department for six years and taught law at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio — is a “valuable member of the IAC.”
Competing versions of the promotion
Bullard said she sent DaSilva Hughes an email in October describing a plan to have Ohlrich and the operations director take over administrative and financial management and let DaSilva Hughes play to her strength as the IAC’s public face. No new title for Ohlrich was mentioned, Bullard said.
Bullard said DaSilva Hughes responded in an email: “I agree with you completely. Thank you for letting me know.”
In an interview, DaSilva Hughes said she agreed with the overall plan, but not with giving Ohlrich the title of executive director. She said the title was mentioned in a meeting in her office with Bullard and a management consultant whom Bullard had called upon to help resolve conflicts among the staff.
“I said ‘absolutely not,’” to Ohlrich’s promotion to executive director, DaSilva Hughes said. “Laurie mentioned the title. I didn’t agree with that.”
DaSilva Hughes by then had learned that the U.S. Department of Justice in November 2019 issued an order saying Ohlrich had been disbarred from practice before the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Immigration Courts and the Department of Homeland Security.
She said she was concerned particularly about the Board of Immigration Appeals, which certifies the IAC to perform certain work, including citizenship ceremonies.
“I questioned why would we hire someone who had been disbarred” to serve as executive director, DaSilva Hughes said.
The public information office for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which includes the Board of Immigration Appeals, declined to comment for this story.
The full board did not vote on the Ohlrich promotion, Bullard said, as DaSilva Hughes had hiring authority at the time as executive director. Bullard said she considered DaSilva Hughes’ agreement to the overall plan as her consent to make the promotion.
So who hired, or promoted Ohlrich for executive director?
“Laurie hired her,” DaSilva Hughes said, although the IAC bylaws, updated in 2022, say the person who holds the position of either executive director or IAC president has hiring and firing authority, not the board chair.
“(Ohlrich) was answering to Laurie,” DaSilva Hughes said. “She wasn’t answering to me.”
DaSilva Hughes acknowledged that she hired Ohlrich initially as development director. At that time, she said, Ohlrich told her a compelling story about her medical leave, associates who took money from a client’s account, and her father’s death.
DaSilva Hughes said she did not learn of the allegations or the disbarment until later.
Asking for a choice
In early February, DaSilva Hughes handed board members a two-page letter asking them to choose between her and Ohlrich.
“I write to request immediate Board action to resolve the administrative crisis that has developed as a result of Ms. Anne Ohlrich’s complaints about my leadership,” DaSilva Hughes wrote. “This is a simple choice for the full Board.”
She wrote that in the last few months, “I feel that my judgment and honesty have been questioned. This has never happened in my 40 years of being employed by the Center.”
The letter mentions Ohlrich’s resignation in lieu of discipline in August 2019 in the face of four allegations: accepting legal matters beyond her competence, failing to keep a client informed, misappropriating nearly $100,000, and deceitful conduct.
“I do not want our organization’s reputation to be called into question due to Ms. Ohlrich’s past actions,” DaSilva Hughes wrote. “I do not believe that it is in the Center’s best interest to have Ms. Ohlrich as a public representative of the Immigrants’ Assistance Center.”
She closed by urging the board to “decide whether it supports my leadership and trusts my decisions and allows me to continue to perform my responsibilities as President, or the full Board can begin a search for a new President.”
DaSilva Hughes said it appears the board has yet to take up the question.
The board chair is now Rosemary Neto Hazzard, who was on the board when Ohlrich was promoted last October. She said early this month that the board did not know about the misconduct allegations or the disbarment when Ohlrich was promoted to executive director.
“We did not know, absolutely not,” Neto Hazzard said in a brief phone interview. “She told us she voluntarily gave up her license to practice law in Texas. She said she had been defrauded, that people had stolen from her. Her dad was sick at the time and she voluntarily gave up her license.”
Former board member Dr. Robert Caldas, who was with the IAC when Ohlrich was hired as development director, said he recalled her saying that she had stopped practicing law because of an illness. Caldas, who left the board before Ohlrich was promoted to executive director, said he did not recall any mention of misconduct allegations or disbarment.
In a letter to The Light on Feb. 26, the board said that when Ohlrich was hired as development director, she “voluntarily disclosed details about her past professional challenges …The Board and IAC leadership carefully considered this history along with her outstanding performance as a volunteer and determined the IAC would be a stronger organization by bringing Annie on board since we felt that the past issues had no bearing on Annie’s ability to serve the organization effectively.”
Before Ohlrich was promoted from development director to executive director in October 2024, Watt, the retired immigration lawyer in New Bedford who served as an IAC honorary board member, said he spoke with Bullard.
“I had some concerns that she had a disbarment in Texas,” Watt said. He said he was concerned in part because the IAC is accredited to perform certain duties, including citizenship ceremonies, by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is mentioned in the Justice Department order.
He said he suggested to Bullard that “someone who had been disbarred might not be the best representative” of the organization, the city’s main immigrant advocacy center. “I wasn’t sure it was a good look for the IAC.”
Starting fresh, telling the story
New Bedford was a new start for Ohlrich. She said she moved to Massachusetts in 2022 from Deer Isle, Maine, where she’d lived since October 2019. She saw Maine as a refuge after the devastating summer of 2019. It seemed far enough from Texas.
“I just didn’t want to be in San Antonio anymore,” she said. “I was just going to retire.”
Through a friend she heard about an immigration-related grant-writing project at the Kennedy-Donovan Center in New Bedford.
Along the way, she said, to colleagues and prospective employers, she has told the story of what happened in Texas. She said she has always told it straight, including addressing a key question: why not challenge the four clients’ allegations?
She said representatives of the State Bar of Texas were urging her to fight. By her account, she had a convincing story. She even said money was withdrawn from the client trust account “the day I was in surgery, so it couldn’t have been me.”
Still, after the illness, discovering what she called her associates’ betrayal, and losing her father, she said she could not mount a fight.
As there was no defense, there was no investigation, a representative of the State Bar of Texas said. Resigning in lieu of discipline lets the allegations stand.
That’s made clear in the Supreme Court of Texas and the U.S. Department of Justice orders of August and November 2019.
The state court order says the misconduct is “conclusively established for all purposes.” The federal order says that Ohlrich’s failure to present a timely response to the allegations “constitutes an admission of the allegations.”
In the interview, Ohlrich said that her options were constrained by the lawyers’ code of conduct in Texas. Under the code, she said, as head of the firm she was responsible for the actions of her associates.
That interpretation, though, is not consistent with the code, said Lisa Tatum, managing partner of a San Antonio law firm, and former president of the Texas State Bar, who has served as head of the bar’s Discipline and Client Attorney Assistance Program Committee.
While the head of a firm may feel responsible for everything that goes on in the office, Tatum said the conduct rules do not hold heads of firms to that standard.
“It’s not a carte blanche, you’re going to lose your license if someone under you is misbehaving,” Tatum said.
According to the version of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers that was in effect when Ohlrich resigned, a lawyer is only responsible for a colleague’s misconduct if they ordered the unethical activity, or knew about it and did not act to ease the consequences.
Ohlrich said in the interview that all the transgressions occurred while she was out sick for five weeks in 2019. That account is not consistent with a document submitted by the State Bar of Texas in response to Ohlrich’s motion to resign. That document includes a summary of the four clients’ grievances.
Claire Reynolds, public affairs counsel for the Texas State Bar, said in filing grievances, clients can name either the head of the firm, or the lawyer who handled their case.
The allegations of misappropriating money and falsifying records are dated 2019, but two other grievances are dated 2018.
In the 2018 grievances, one client claims Ohlrich handled an immigration matter “which she should have known was beyond her competence,” and did not respond promptly to requests for information. A second client in 2018 also made the “beyond her competence” allegation.
The 2019 claims allege that Ohlrich “misappropriated $90,000 of $150,000 in client funds” and “produced fraudulent bank records as part of her responses” to the two clients making this allegation.
Ohlrich said restitution was made. The Light asked her in an email for documentation, but her response did not address that question.
Reynolds said that if restitution were made, it would not be a public record.
When contacted by The Light, one of two clients who alleged misappropriation of money declined to comment.
In response to an email seeking clarification of inconsistencies between parts of her account and the documents, Ohlrich said she could not speak further until she had completed her medical leave, and only in the presence of Bullard, who was then still board chair.
Awaiting a decision
Ohlrich is continuing to work mainly from home. Her desk in the IAC second-floor office on Crapo Street is neatly arranged with files and papers. She recently removed items that had been displayed on one wall.
The IAC staff is staying on task, as the rumor mill about local sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers runs in overdrive out in the streets, on social media.
DaSilva Hughes said she’s been doing a lot of public speaking and media appearances about what Trump’s call for mass deportations could mean, and conducting events preparing families for possible detentions, perhaps deportation.
DaSilva Hughes said in the last couple of months she’s been relieved of administrative responsibilities and is waiting to hear from the board of directors about her letter regarding Ohlrich.
“The board is going to take one thing at a time,” she said. “I’m very confident the board will make the right decision for this organization. I have great confidence in this board.”
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
This sounds more like someone is pissed about being demoted than about worried about the “overall welfare” of the center. This is a smear campaign. Remember there are two sides to every story.
I agree! Give Ohlrich a chance. Sounds like she has excellent experience. Someone’s letting their ego get in the way of a great organization !
From what is written here, seems like this woman is only forthcoming about presenting things in a way to present herself as the victim. She conveniently leaves out facts that show otherwise.
If you actually read the court files from the Texas case, it looks pretty bad. There were four cases against her and her firm, all from immigrants her firm was suppose to be helping. It also sounds like she lied, a lot, to folks at IAC about what happened in Texas regarding her misconduct and disbarment. She told everyone different stories and minimized her own involvement by blaming her employees. In my opinion, if she was as innocent as she says, she would have fought against the disbarment to save her reputation. She did not do this. The mush she uses as excuses for not defending herself and being disbarred are not really very believable. If someone accused me of stealing 100K from a client, I would do whatever it took to clear my name. Instead, she accepted the judgement without a fight and moved to a far away state. Putting her in charge and making her head of another organization where she supposedly helps immigrants sounds like folly. Her firm stole 100k from an immigrant in her previous job so no reason to think that she would do a better job now.
I have known Helena DaSilva (Hughes) for decades. She has been a tireless, ego-free advocate for the least powerful members of our community her entire career. If she is being sent to the sidelines, the organization’s administration has lost all understanding of its role – at the worst possible time in its existence.
Is the Immigrants’ Assistance Center funded by any federal, state or municipal monies?
If so, what is the actual amount of funding from the public and what are the governmental agencies involved?
If the IAC is a private organization, their ‘dirty laundry” is theirs to wash and not the domain of public inquiry or adjudication.
That asked, this situation stinks as bad as a gurry truck in August outside a fillet house.
It appears that multiple “stories” have been put forth, at varying times by Anne Ohlrich, concerning her “resignation in lieu of punishment” from the Texas Bar.
This is absolutely unacceptable on many levels in both private corporate entities and governmental agencies.
Time to clean up this mess that is being reported to the readershi[.
Way to go NBL (or is this TMZ). Kick a long standing non-profit agency in the city in the teeth just when the community needs their services the most. You should be ashamed of this story.