Rajkishun, Rovika

Rovika Rajkishun

Rovika Rajkishun is a nonprofit fundraising and communications expert and community organizer currently serving as the Interim Co-Executive Director at the New York Immigration Coalition. Born and raised in Guyana, Rajkishun immigrated to Brooklyn, New York at age ten. She has spent the last two decades helping community-based organizations build their sustainability and capacity. Rajkishun has committed her career to progressive causes, including gender equity, racial justice, workforce development, civic engagement, and immigrant rights.

Munn, Monica

Monica Munn

Monica Munn leads World Education Services’ philanthropic arm, which invests in catalytic organizations and leaders working to ensure immigrant and refugee workers can thrive and to build more inclusive and equitable economies in the U.S. and Canada. She previously managed global jobs, food security, and rural energy initiatives at the Rockefeller Foundation. Earlier in her career, Munn worked at a social enterprise, Next Street, that focuses on ensuring entrepreneurs and small businesses in Black, Latinx, and underinvested communities can access capital and drive equitable growth. Munn currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Workforce Matters Funders Network.

Misra, Neha

Neha Misra

Neha Misra, J.D., is the Solidarity Center's Senior Specialist for Migration and Human Trafficking. She joined the Solidarity Center in 1998 as the deputy country program director in Indonesia, where she managed the Solidarity Center’s counter trafficking in persons, labor migration and democracy programs. Later, Misra served as a senior program officer in the Center's Africa department. Before joining the Solidarity Center, she worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina on postwar elections and democracy, and in the United States as a senior attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice. While at the Justice Department, she also served as the president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 3525. Misra serves on the executive board of Migration that Works and the Global Coalition for Migration, and represents the Solidarity Center in the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, the Civil Society Action Committee, and the Women in Migration Network.  

Maquitico, Alma

Alma Maquitico

Alma Maquitico is the co-director of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Maquitico's work has centered on developing initiatives to address rural development, climate change, and human rights. Over the past twenty years, she has provided technical assistance to various grassroots organizations addressing food, agriculture, and ecological sustainability, particularly with migrant and refugee communities on the US-Mexico borderlands. In addition, Maquitico has helped build grassroots networks to monitor and document human rights violations resulting from immigration enforcement in communities along the US-Mexico border.

Kekic, Erol

Erol Kekic

Erol Kekic is a veteran in the field of refugee resettlement as well as humanitarian and refugee policy related work. As the Senior Vice President of the New York-based CWS, Kekic leads the agency’s efforts to address the needs of forcibly displaced individuals through resettlement and other durable solutions. Kekic is frequently quoted in the press and is an outspoken advocate on behalf of fair, humane U.S. immigration and refugee policies. Prior to his current posting, Kekic worked in the field of refugee assistance in a number of domestic and international settings.

Infantry, Heather

Heather Infantry

Heather Infantry is the Arts & Culture Champion for the TransFormation Alliance, a partnership of Metro Atlanta organizations dedicated to creating equitable transit-oriented communities. In May, Infantry led an effort exposing the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta of redlining the Black arts community resulting in an unprecedented contribution of $1,082,392 to 23 Black organizations.  

Hunter, Adam

Adam Hunter

Adam Hunter is Executive Director of Refugee Council USA, an organization and membership coalition working to protect and welcome refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced populations. Hunter has more than 15 years’ experience on migration, national security, and international affairs issues through positions in government, foundations, think tanks, and fellowships.

Carter, Sundrop

Sundrop Carter

Sundrop Carter is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, stepping into the role after 2 years as Organizing Director. Raised by hippie parents, Carter always knew she would be part of movements to advance social justice. Before PICC, Carter worked with organizations and activist projects supporting immigrant workers fighting for justice at their workplaces. Carter received her B.A. from Clark University and J.D. from Brooklyn Law School.

Shah, Silky

Silky Shah

Silky Shah is the Executive Director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the US. She has worked as an organizer on issues related to immigration detention, mass incarceration, and racial and migrant justice for over 15 years. In her time at DWN, Shah has helped transform the organization into a national leader in the immigrant rights movement, leading campaigns to expose the system and building the capacity of grassroots members to take action. Prior to joining DWN in 2009, Shah worked at Grassroots Leadership in Texas fighting the expansion of immigrant jails on the US-Mexico border and at the independent news program, Democracy Now!, in New York.

Moussavian, Avideh

Avideh Moussavian

Avideh Moussavian currently serves as the Legislative Director at the National Immigration Law Center, where her advocacy focuses on advancing the rights of opportunities of immigrants with low income so they can achieve their full potential, regardless of their race, class, or gender. Moussavian has previously worked on immigration reform advocacy and state and local enforcement issues at the New York Immigration Coalition and directly represented immigrant survivors of gender-based violence at Sanctuary for Families in New York City, including those in detention. She has served on the board of Families for Freedom, an anti-deportation community organizing network in New York City, and as a visiting professional with the Office of Public Counsel for Defense at the International Criminal Court. Moussavian holds a juris doctor from Boston University School of Law and a bachelor of arts from Columbia University.

Abrar, Sanaa

Sanaa Abrar

Sanaa Abrar serves as the Advocacy Director at United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led network in the nation. Abrar leads the network in crafting federal and state and local policies and advocacy campaigns that are informed by the vision shared by immigrant youth across the country. She was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and immigrated with her mother at three months old to reunite with her father in the United States. She shares in the UWD vision of reaching out to other sisters of color who feel isolated and ostracized by their communities, to build together, organize and win. Abrar graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Spanish as well as a minor in Public Health from Washington University in St. Louis. She went on to complete her Master’s in Public Administration with a concentration in Nonprofit Management from American University. Abrar also serves on the board of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

Abaya, Miriam

Miriam Abaya

Miriam Abaya is the Senior Director for Immigration and Children’s Rights at First Focus on Children. Abaya is Nigerian American and grew up in Jos, Nigeria. She came to the United States for school, and has a BA in music from Haverford College and a law degree from Temple University Beasley School of Law. Before joining First Focus, Abaya was a Law & Public Policy Fellow for the Temple Law & Public Policy Program, where she researched international justice outreach on the African continent. She also worked part-time for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative, where she supported a project on victim participation in the Central African Republic's Special Criminal Court. Most recently, Abaya was a Policy Analyst at the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, where she advocated for policies that would protect the best interests and rights of unaccompanied children in government custody. 

Younus, Abdullah

Abdullah Younus

Abdullah Younus is the Director of Political Engagement at the New York Immigration Coalition. He is on the National Political Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America. He is also a proud desi organizer and lives in Bay Ridge. Previously, he has been with the United Auto Workers, MPower Change and #TeamElYateem.

Stolz, Rich

Rich Stolz

Rich Stolz has served as OneAmerica’s Executive Director since August 2012. During his tenure, OneAmerica has cemented its status as one of the most effective organizing, advocacy, and civic engagement organizations in Washington State. Stolz was born in Seoul, South Korea. Stolz’s family moved to the United States when he was three, and he was raised by his mother in Redwood City, California. Stolz first cut his teeth in organizing while a student at Stanford University to create ethnic studies programs. In 1994, he organized to defeat proposition 187, an anti-immigrant ballot measure in California. Prior to OneAmerica, Stolz worked at the Center for Community Change, a national organization based in Washington, D.C. During that time, he focused on the intersection of policy, politics, and organizing across a broad spectrum of issues impacting low-income communities and communities of color, including jobs and income support policy, immigration policy, infrastructure investment ,and environmental justice. He has lived and organized in communities as diverse as Portland, Maine; Montgomery, Alabama; Tucson, Arizona; Washington, D.C.; and Seattle, Washington. Throughout his life, he has been deeply influenced by the civil rights movement and liberation theology in the context of Catholic social teaching. Together, these experiences affirmed his calling to social justice and human rights organizing and activism. In 2013, Stolz was honored by President Barack Obama as a Cesar Chavez Champion of Change alongside other leaders in the immigrant rights movement.

Sen, Rinku

Rinku Sen

Rinku Sen is the Executive Director of Narrative Initiative. A writer and social justice strategist, she is formerly the Executive Director of Race Forward and was Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines. Under Sen’s leadership, Race Forward generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes of recent years, including Drop the I-Word, a campaign for media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as “illegal,” resulting in the Associated Press, USA Today, LA Times, and many more outlets changing their practice. She was also the architect of the Shattered Families report, which identified the number of kids in foster care whose parents had been deported. 

Her books Stir it Up and The Accidental American theorize a model of community organizing that integrates a political analysis of race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and other systems. As a consultant, Sen has worked on narrative and political strategy with numerous organizations and foundations, including PolicyLink, the ACLU and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. She serves on numerous boards, including the Women’s March, where she is Co-President and the Foundation for National Progress, publisher of Mother Jones magazine.

Rodriguez, María Alegria

María Alegria Rodriguez

María Alegria Rodriguez is the first Executive Director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, a bold and dynamic social movement organization that seeks the fair and equal treatment of all people, including immigrants. It builds and aggregates the connection, consciousness and capacity of its diverse membership across 10 counties in Florida. As a movement architect, Rodriguez’s inclusive leadership has yielded impressive wins in college access, wage protections and combating criminalization, allowing more people to live, love and work without fear. A social entrepreneur, she has co-founded or helped establish half a dozen award-winning organizations, including a free medical clinic, a housing cooperative, an arts & therapy group and an electoral entity, which are all thriving today. From foreign policy advocacy on Southern Africa and Central America, to domestic organizing for quality housing and healthcare at home, Rodriguez brings principled and effective leadership that yields concrete results. She grew up in Puerto Rico in a multi-cultural family and is a graduate of Georgetown University.

Opoti, Nekessa

Nekessa Opoti

Nekessa Opoti is the Communications Director at Black Alliance for Justice Immigration, one of the co-founders of the Minnesota-based Black Immigrant Collective and a member of the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project. Opoti is an award-winning journalist (recovering), editor, producer, writer, communications strategist, and immigrant justice organizer. As a multimedia storyteller, she promotes a grassroots articulation of often ignored and marginalized voices. Through her work, she explores race specifically anti-Black racism, class, migration and displacement, education, gender, sexuality, identity, and belonging from a queer Black femme immigrant lens. 

Naeem, Mohammed

Mohammed Naeem

Mohammed Naeem is the Senior Manager for Strategy and Partnerships at the Center for Inclusion and Belonging, guiding the direction, facilitation, and build of its programmatic portfolios. The Center houses the signature culture and narrative change strategies of the American Immigration Council. Previously, Mohammed worked at More in Common, where he led initiatives and partnerships with a wide variety of civil society groups, philanthropy, and media, in addition to launching landmark research projects and associated communication strategies. He has led movement-building projects across racial and economic justice, immigration, and bridge-building between diverse groups. Mohammed has a background in medical and public health research and is an alumna of Stony Brook University.

Milkman, Ruth

Ruth Milkman

Ruth Milkman is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, where she chairs the Labor Studies Department. Previously, Milkman served for 21 years as a sociology professor at UCLA, where she directed the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment from 2001 to 2008. A sociologist of labor and labor movements, Mlilkman has written on a variety of topics involving work and organized labor in the United States, past and present. Her most recent books are Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat and On Gender, Labor and Inequality. Her early research focused on the impact on U.S. women workers of economic crisis and war in the 1930s and 1940s. She went on to study the restructuring of the U.S. automobile industry and its impact on workers and their union in the 1980s and 1990s; in that period she also analyzed the labor practices of Japanese-owned factories in California. More recently Milkman has written extensively about low-wage immigrant workers, analyzing their employment conditions as well as the dynamics of immigrant labor organizing. She co-authored a 2013 study of California’s paid family leave program, focusing on its impact on employers and workers. Milkman served as the 2016 President of the American Sociological Association, where her presidential address focused on Millennial-generation social movements. She has also conducted extensive policy-oriented research on such topics as wage theft, unionization trends, paid sick leave, and the aging workforce. 

Martinez, Greisa

Greisa Martinez

Greisa Martinez is Deputy Executive Director at United We Dream. Originally from Hidalgo, Mexico, Martinez immigrated to the U.S. with her family at an early age and grew up in Dallas, TX as an undocumented immigrant. Martinez has organized immigrant youth and workers for the passage of pro-immigrant policies at the local and national level for the past 10 years. She co-founded the Council for Minority Student Affairs at Texas A&M University, the first undocumented youth-led group in the University’s 100 year history. She founded the Texas Dream Alliance and was a fellow with the League of Young Voters.