Grey Torrico

Grey was born in Iquique, Chile and brought to the United States at the age of seven. Growing up in Naples, Florida, she became aware for the first time just how different people were, in terms of class, race and socio-economic status and how harsh the treatment of immigrants was in the area. In 2008, while at the University of Florida, she founded CHISPAS, a student-led organization that united immigrant youth, both legal and undocumented, that searched to understand the complexities of the issue and change the very system that made them so. Through this, she became intensely involved with the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act and young undocumented youth throughout the state. She graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Spanish with a certificate in Latin American Studies.

Through the Soros Justice Fellowship at the Open Society Foundation in September 2011, she founded the Collier County Neighborhood Stories Project (CCNSP), a community initiative whose main focus is to collect testimonies of the immigrant communities in Southwest Florida. She, along with students, impacted community members and numerous volunteers, conducted bilingual trainings, workshops and presentations on issues of immigrant criminalization and the complexity of the immigration detention system. Grey currently lives and works in Collier County as the detention and enforcement organizer at the Florida Immigrant Coalition. (FLIC).