A former managing attorney for the San Ysidro-based migrant rights nonprofit Al Otro Lado has settled his wrongful-termination and whistleblower-retaliation lawsuit against the organization, closing out a legal fight that accused the group's leadership of fraudulent billing practices and workplace retaliation. Diego Javier Aranda Teixeira alleged he was fired as a supervising attorney in December 2024 in retaliation for raising internal complaints about the nonprofit's grant compliance and treatment of staff.
Attorneys for Al Otro Lado filed court papers notifying Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Christopher K. Lui of an unconditional resolution, according to MyNewsLA.com. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, and Al Otro Lado's attorneys denied Aranda Teixeira's allegations. Al Otro Lado, which provides legal and humanitarian support to refugees, deportees and other migrants, is based in San Ysidro in San Diego County.
From Tijuana Office to Managing Attorney
Aranda Teixeira was hired into Al Otro Lado's Tijuana office in 2020, according to the same MyNewsLA.com report, before being transferred in 2022 to the organization's U.S.-based advocacy team as managing attorney for litigation, where he came to supervise the group's Los Angeles, San Diego and Tijuana teams. His appellate work for the organization dates back to at least 2020, when he represented asylum seekers before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, per FindLaw records. Civil rights group Muslim Advocates reported in October 2023 that he served as managing attorney for litigation at Al Otro Lado while coordinating multi-organization impact litigation partnerships, underscoring his senior standing within the group's legal network before the internal dispute surfaced.
Aranda Teixeira's lawsuit, filed in December 2025, alleged he and other U.S. team members complained in August 2024 about suspected illegalities including potential fraudulent billing issues, and separately raised concerns about workplace violations including retaliation. Those complaints were reportedly directed to Al Otro Lado's board, executive director and operations director, per the lawsuit. The suit alleged that upper management responded by accusing Aranda Teixeira and lower-ranked U.S. team supervisors and managers of collective bullying, even as they pushed for a safe work environment and collaborative hiring practices meant to meet grant requirements.
Billing Allegations Tied to State Bar Grant Rules
Central to the lawsuit's allegations was a claim that Al Otro Lado violated IOLTA and Equal Access Fund grant conditions by not filling funded positions and by cross-billing.
California Labor Code § 1102.5 bars employers from retaliating against employees who disclose suspected legal or regulatory violations, whether internally to supervisors or externally to government entities, and statutory protections were expanded under Senate Bill 497 in 2024 to allow civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation paid directly to the employee, according to the Rio Law Group. Those protections extend to internal disclosures made to supervisors, which is the framework under which Aranda Teixeira's complaint was filed.
Al Otro Lado, for its part, alleged in December 2024 that Aranda Teixeira committed serious violations of company policies and data security rules, according to the lawsuit's account. The nonprofit terminated him during an asylum interview, per the same account.
A Nonprofit Balancing Billion-Dollar Border Battles
The internal dispute unfolded while Al Otro Lado was engaged in some of the most consequential immigration litigation in the country. In August 2022, a federal judge in San Diego ruled in Al Otro Lado v. Mayorkas that U.S. Customs and Border Protection's practice of “metering,” or turning away asylum seekers at land ports of entry, was unlawful, according to the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies.
Financial disclosures filed with the California Attorney General's Registry of Charitable Trusts provide information about Al Otro Lado's finances, according to InfluenceWatch. Al Otro Lado is based in San Ysidro and has a Tijuana office.
Because the settlement's terms were undisclosed and Al Otro Lado denied the allegations, it remains unresolved whether the State Bar of California or other oversight bodies separately examined the billing concerns raised in Aranda Teixeira's lawsuit.
