Jama, Kayse

Kayse Jama

Kayse Jama, Executive Director of Unite Oregon, was born into a nomad family in Somalia. He left when the civil war erupted, and finally found sanctuary in Portland. From 2005 to 2007, he trained immigrant and refugee community leaders in five Western states—Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho—under a prestigious New Voices Fellowship at Western States Center. He has been awarded the Skidmore Prize for outstanding young nonprofit professionals (2007), the Oregon Immigrant Achievement Award from Oregon chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (2008), the 2009 Lowenstein Trust Award, which is presented yearly to “that person who demonstrated the greatest contribution to assisting the poor and underprivileged in Portland,” and the 2012 Portland Peace Prize.

Huddleston, Dr. Thomas

Dr. Thomas Huddleston

Dr. Thomas Huddleston is the Migration Policy Group's Research Director. Huddleston joined MPG in 2006, and since 2018, he coordinates research and communications. On behalf of MPG, he chairs the European Union’s migrant education network (SIRIUS) and the quarterly migration meetings of the EU NGO Platform on EU Asylum and Migration. He is also the coordinator of MPG’s Migrant Integration Policy Index, the European Website on Integration, the VoteBrussels campaign and the Transatlantic Migrant Democracy Dialogue. Huddleston obtained his PhD in European Studies at Maastricht University. He is a Senior Fellow of Humanity in Action, and an alumnus of Georgetown University.

Gomez-Herrin, Rosa

Rosa Gomez-Herrin

Rosa Gomez-Herrin currently leads Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at Operation Restoration (OR). A scholar, community advocate, urban planner, writer and strategist from the Global South, she joined OR to pursue her dream of ending mass incarceration and immigrant detention by supporting the leadership of those directly impacted by these unjust systems. Gomez-Herrin was born and raised in Lima, Perú, and has spent the last 18 years living in the U.S. Deep South. Her personal, academic, and professional experiences in the United States and abroad are rooted in a life-long commitment to social and racial justice. She has twenty years of experience working for grassroots and philanthropic organizations. She has a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Southern Mississippi and a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of New Orleans. Gomez-Herrin is completing her research to obtain a PhD in Urban Studies from UNO, focusing on the emerging spatial concentrations of the Latinx community in the New Orleans metro.

Flores, Nancy

Nancy Flores

Nancy Flores is the Deputy Director at the National Partnership for New Americans. Her track record includes, but is not limited to; successfully organizing and advocating for hundreds of families facing deportation, established multiple programs for youth and immigrant women, led statewide and national campaigns and fundraising efforts. Previously, Nancy was with Voces de la Frontera, Wisconsin’s leading immigrant rights group and a member organization of NPNA.

Cheer, Shiu-Ming

Shiu-Ming Cheer

Shiu-Ming Cheer spearheads the National Immigration Law Center's bridge-building efforts to support a healthy, powerful, and purposeful movement in her role as the Director of Movement Building & Strategic Partnerships. At NILC, Cheer has also focused on challenging immigration enforcement, advancing access to status, and incorporating a field perspective into the work. Previously, she held the positions of Soros Justice Fellow and managing attorney at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network’s Los Angeles Detention Project and children’s attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. In those roles, she represented detained immigrants facing deportation. She was also the civil rights coordinator at South Asian Network and a public benefits attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County. Cheer holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a juris doctor from the UCLA School of Law Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. She has a long history of involvement in social justice organizing projects, campaigns, and coalitions and has served on the Boards of the Filipino Migrant Center, Khmer Girls in Action and the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA). Cheer has received awards for her community and legal work from the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition, the National Lawyers Guild – LA, and KIWA. 

Chacón, Oscar A.

Oscar A. Chacón

Oscar A. Chacón is a co‐founder and executive director of Alianza Americas. Prior to his designation in 2007 in his current role, Chacón served in leadership positions at the Chicago‐based Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights, the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the Boston‐ based Centro Presente, and several other community based and international development organizations. Chacón has also served on multiple advisory committees to national and international processes including the Civil Society Consultation process associated with the Global Forum on Migration and Development and the World Social Forum on Migration. Chacón is a frequent national and international spokesperson on transnationalism, economic justice, the link between migration and development, migrant’s integration processes, human mobility, migration policies, racism and xenophobia; and U.S. Latino community issues.

Barge, Ben

Ben Barge

Ben Barge is the Field Director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. In this role, Barge strengthens NCRP’s relationships with U.S. social movements and philanthropic organizations to move money and power to community-led advocacy and organizing. Barge manages the Movement Investment Project and leads NCRP’s external engagement with the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement. He also oversees staff travel and presentations for NCRP’s major initiatives. Prior to joining NCRP, Barge worked at the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, where he facilitated grantmaking and special projects around the racial and gender wealth gap, democracy, criminalization, environmental advocacy and public education. Barge hails from Georgia, and received his undergraduate degree in political science and Spanish from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sarsour, Linda

Linda Sarsour

Linda Sarsour is an award-winning racial justice and civil rights activist, community organizer, every Islamophobe's worst nightmare and mother of three. She is a Palestinian-Muslim-American born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She is the co-founder of the first Muslim online organizing platform, MPower Change and co-founder of Until Freedom. Linda was one of the national co-chairs of the largest single day protest in US history, the Women’s March on Washington. She has been named amongst 500 of the most influential Muslims in the world. She was recognized as one of Fortune’s 50 Greatest Leaders and featured as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2017. Linda is a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow and just released her highly anticipated book, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love & Resistance. She is most recognized for her transformative intersectional organizing work and movement building. 

Peterson, Daniela

Daniela Peterson

Daniela Peterson has worked at the Trust for Public Land since 2018 bringing a strategic, informed approach to their work with communities. As a brown, immigrant social worker from Chile, Daniela’s personal, professional, and volunteer experiences have given her a comprehensive understanding of community dynamics, especially relating to disenfranchised populations. As a social worker, and with 15 years of experience working with nonprofits, city government, a juvenile detention center, and public schools, Daniela has adeptly cultivated both neighborhood and institutional partnerships that bring stakeholders like residents, community leaders, and faith-based organizations to the forefront of the planning process. Leveraging the vision and creativity of local artists, Daniela’s work provides space for all ages to lend a voice and a hand in community development. Although her work is based primarily in Chattanooga, Daniela seeks to create replicable community strategies, such as the recent East Lake Free Family Photo Day, which gave families the chance to have professional photographs taken in their neighborhood park. Daniela has presented at national placemaking convenings, and has received recognition for her work in Chattanooga, including Footprint Foundation’s Footprint Award (2019), La Paz Chattanooga’s Latino Leadership Award (2017), and a recent feature on the Benwood Foundation blog, Bread and Belonging: Daniela Peterson, Creative Placemaking Fellow, Trust for Public Land. Daniela serves on the Board of La Paz Chattanooga.

Hernández, Mario

Mario Hernández

Mario Hernández is Director of Public Affairs at Western Union, a leader in global cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments. In this position, he is responsible for the development and implementation of public affairs strategies to reach WU’s various constituencies in the U.S., Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Hernández studied Public Administration at El Colegio de México; earned an M.Sc. in Public Policy and Public Administration from the London School of Economics; participated in the first European Masters in Public Administration; and has completed all but his dissertation towards a Ph.D. in Public Affairs at the University of Colorado in Denver.

Wey, Tunde

Tunde Wey

Tunde Wey has run multiple food based projects that engage publics around questions of disparity, power and privilege. Among some of Wey's work are his food stall SAARTJ explored racial wealth disparity by offering race based pricing, and his pop up dinner HOT CHICKEN SHIT raised money for affordable housing in Nashville by selling hot chicken. Wey has also started a condiment brand critiquing multinational corporate interests in indigenous food systems. Tunde’s work has been covered in the New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Vogue, and GQ. His own writing has been featured in the Boston Globe, Oxford American, CityLab, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is a TIME Magazine 2019 Next Generation Leader and among the NYTimes’ 16 Black Chefs Changing Food in America 2019. Wey is currently working on a memoir slated for a 2022 publish date from MCD (a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Along with his partners, he is producing a docu-series about the socioeconomic consequences of food production and consumption for release on public television in 2021.

Ward, Eric K.

Eric K. Ward

Eric K. Ward, a national expert on the relationship between hate violence and preserving democratic institutions, governance, and inclusive societies, brings nearly 30 years of expertise in community organizing and philanthropy to his role as Western States Center’s Executive Director.

Ward began his civil rights work when the white nationalist movement was engaged in violent paramilitary activity that sought to undermine democratic governance in the Pacific Northwest. In the early 1990s, Ward founded and directed a community project to expose and counter hate groups and respond to bigoted violence with the Community Alliance of Lane County. Following that, with the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, Ward worked with government leaders, civil rights campaigners, businesses leaders, and law enforcement officials to establish over 120 task forces in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. Ward went on to join the Center for New Community as National Field Director, where he assisted immigrant rights advocates in addressing the growing influence of xenophobia on public policy. 

Beginning in 2011 as Program Executive for The Atlantic Philanthropies’ U.S. Reconciliation and Human Rights Programme, Ward led grantmaking in immigration and national security and rights. Additionally, Ward’s grantmaking as a Ford Foundation Program Officer supported efforts to combat inequality. Ward has consulted extensively with philanthropic institutions across the country including the Open Society Foundation, and co-founded Funders for Justice. A contributor to the Progressive Media Project from 2008-2014, Ward has been quoted and cited extensively by national media and is the editor of three published works: Conspiracies: Real Grievances, Paranoia and Mass Movements; Second Civil War: States’ Rights, Sovereignty; and Power of the County and American Armageddon: Religion, Revolution, and the Right. Ward is also the author of the 2017 essay Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism.

Truong-Hill, Trang

Trang Truong-Hill

Trang Truong-Hill joined YMCA of the USA in 2013, following eight years with the YMCA of Greater Long Beach working with immigrant youth and families. She has worked in the non-profit sector for over 15 years. As the Director for Newcomer Engagement and Global Strategies, Trang leads and coordinates efforts to strengthen the capacity of local Ys to work with newcomer-immigrant communities and successfully impact diverse communities. She provides national strategic oversight of the growing network of YMCA New American Welcome Centers, YMCAs' participation in National Welcoming Week and external partnerships. Trang also supports International work, managing a partner coalition with the Philippines YMCA. Trang graduated from California State University, Long Beach with a bachelor’s degree in human development and a minor in anthropology.

Soni, Saket

Saket Soni

Saket Soni is the founder and co-director of Resilience Force, the national voice of America’s Resilience Workforce. Resilience Workers are the rising labor force powering disaster recovery and adaptation in the era of climate change. Saket also founded the New Orleans Workers’ Center and the National Guestworker Alliance, both in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He has won organizing and policy victories for low-wage workers and the unemployed. Saket and his team have won landmark judgements, including one of the largest cases of human trafficking in modern US history, recovered millions of dollars in stolen wages, fought to eliminate forced labor in many industries, and raised wages and working conditions for thousands of workers. A profile in USA Today called Saket an “architect of the next labor movement.” Saket is from New Delhi, India.

Salas, Angelica

Angelica Salas

Angelica Salas is Executive Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, where, since 1999, she has spearheaded several ambitious campaigns that have led to wins in California such as in-state tuition for undocumented students; establishment of day laborer job centers; and driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants. Salas is President and Board Chair of Californians for Human Immigrant Rights Leadership Action Fund; an Executive Committee member of National Partnership for New Americans and Fair Immigrant Rights Movement. Salas also serves on the Board of Directors at California Wellness Foundation, America’s Voice, UNITE-LA, and Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.

Ramakrishnan, Karthick

Karthick Ramakrishnan

Karthick Ramakrishnan is professor of public policy and political science at the University of California, Riverside, and founding director of its Center for Social Innovation. He has published many articles and 7 books, including most recently, Citizenship Reimagined (Cambridge, 2020) and Framing Immigrants (Russell Sage, 2016). He has written dozens of op-eds and has appeared in over 1,000 news stories. Ramakrishnan was  named to the Frederick Douglass 200 and is currently working on projects related to racial equity in philanthropy and regional development. He holds a BA in international relations from Brown University and a PhD in politics from Princeton.

Ramakrishnan serves on the Board of The California Endowment and the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni, chairs the California Commission on APIA Affairs, and serves as director of the Inland Empire Census Complete Count Committee. Ramakrishnan directs the National Asian American Survey and is founder of AAPIData.com, which publishes demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.  

Poo, Ai-jen

Ai-jen Poo

Ai-jen Poo is the co-founder and Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a non-profit organization working to bring quality work, dignity and fairness to the growing numbers of workers who care and clean in our homes, the majority of whom are immigrants and women of color.  In 12 short years, with the help of more than 70 local affiliate organizations and chapters and over 200,000 members, the National Domestic Workers Alliance has passed Domestic Worker Bills of Rights in 9 states and the city of Seattle, and brought over 2 million home care workers under minimum wage protections.

In 2011, Poo launched Caring Across Generations to unite American families in a campaign to achieve bold solutions to the nation’s crumbling care infrastructure. The campaign has catalyzed groundbreaking policy change in states including the nation’s first family caregiver benefit in Hawaii, and the first long-term care social insurance fund in Washington State. Her widely acclaimed book The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America helps Americans make meaning of the need and opportunity in the elder boom — to improve access to care for all families while ensuring a strong care workforce for the future. 

Poo is also a leading voice in the women’s movement. In 2019 along with Ceclie Richards and Alicia Garza, Poo co-founded SuperMajority, a new home for women's activism, training and mobilizing a multiracial, intergenerational community who will fight for gender equity together. She serves as a Senior Advisor to Care in Action, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to fighting for a civic voice for millions of women of color, particularly domestic workers in the United States.

Peric, Rachel

Rachel Peric

Rachel Peric is the Executive Director of Welcoming America. Inspired by her family’s refugee story and by the worldwide movement of welcomers, Peric works to create communities where all residents – including immigrants and refugees – can thrive and belong. Since joining the organization in 2011, she has served as the organization’s deputy director and in other senior leadership roles, helping grow Welcoming America from a nascent startup to an award-winning organization with a global footprint. The White House honored Welcoming America and ten of its leaders as White House Welcoming America Champions of Change for their innovations in immigrant integration. In 2014 the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and BMW Group distinguished Welcoming America as a recipient of their Intercultural Innovation Award, honoring its work in promoting intercultural understanding. Prior to Welcoming America, she served as Executive Director of MCAEL, a community literacy coalition that strengthens and promotes adult literacy and English language learning in suburban Washington, DC, where she was recognized by Montgomery Women with the Rising Star Award. She also served as Regional Director with the United Way of the National Capital Area, where she led fundraising and community impact efforts in Montgomery County, Maryland. She began her career managing international development programs with a private consulting firm, Management Systems International (MSI). The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Peric also serves on the board of Art and Remembrance, a nonprofit devoted to using art and personal narrative to recognize individual courage and resilience. Peric holds a BA in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University and a Masters in Public Management from the University of Maryland. 

Osaze, Ola Osifo

Ola Osifo Osaze

Ola Osifo Osaze is a trans masculine queer of Edo and Yoruba descent, who was born in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and now resides in Houston, Texas. Osaze is the National Organizer for the Black LGBTQ+ Migrant Project and has been a community organizer for many years, including working with Transgender Law Center, the Audre Lorde Project, Uhuru Wazobia (one of the first LGBT groups for African immigrants in the US), Queers for Economic Justice and Sylvia Rivera Law Project. Osaze is a 2015 Voices of Our Nation Arts workshop fellow, and has writings published in Apogee, Qzine, Black Girl Dangerous, Black Looks, and the anthologies Queer African Reader and Queer Africa II.

Mohammed, Denzil

Denzil Mohammed

Denzil Mohammed is an intercultural communications specialist who works to build understanding across boundaries utilizing a research- and asset-based approach. As director of the Public Education Institute at The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, MA, Mohammed manages specialized online education for immigrant- and refugee serving organizations and teachers, local and national research initiatives with the Institute for Immigration Research, a joint venture with George Mason University, and collaborative public events that promote immigrants as economic and social assets to the United States. Mohammed serves on advisory boards for the Massachusetts New Americans Integration Institute and the Boston Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement. An immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, he’s been published in The New England Journal of Higher Education and in the book Working Together: How Community Colleges and Their Partners Help Immigrants Succeed. He is a frequent speaker on immigration in terms of integration, narratives, demographics, entrepreneurship and education.