Media
Experts at the Forum
Ali Noorani
Executive Director
Ali Noorani has more than a decade of successful leadership in public policy advocacy, non-profit management and coalition organizing, across a wide range of issues. As a key figure among a new generation of national leaders, he continues this mission as Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum.
Under Noorani’s leadership since 2008, the Forum is a powerful and key advocate on numerous immigration issues, working in alliance with business, law enforcement, faith and immigrant leadership across the country to advance much needed reforms to our nation’s immigration system.
Noorani provides a principled and reasoned voice on immigration policy and politics, and has appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, ABC News, and various radio and local news programs. He has been quoted on the pages of most of the nation’s major dailies and is a regular speaker at conferences and campuses across the country.
Prior to joining the Forum, Noorani was Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA). Before taking the helm at MIRA, Noorani served as the Director of Public Health for the Dorchester House Multi-Service Center and Codman Square Health Center, two large community health centers in Boston. Prior to that, Noorani worked for the City of Boston coordinating funding and technical assistance to regional environmental projects.
Flavia Jimenez
Naturalization and Workplace Integration Project Director
(Contact Flavia Jimenez for commentary on naturalization/citizenship and vocational English language learning.)
Flavia Jimenez has accumulated a wide array of experience in the non-profit arena in her work on immigration-related issues over the past ten years. She currently works on issues of immigrant integration, including citizenship and vocational English language learning. Prior to coming to the Forum in July 2011, she worked at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) where she directed a multi ethnic state wide citizenship program and also worked on fundraising.
Ms. Jimenez has been a senior policy analyst at the National Council of La Raza where she worked to defeat state level anti-immigrant legislation and on national comprehensive immigration reform. Prior to that, she was an employment attorney at Casa of Md. Inc, representing employment and immigration-related cases. There she began a domestic workers committee and worked with women victims of trafficking. Ms. Jimenez is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
Brittney Nystrom
Director of Policy and Legal Affairs
Contact Brittney Nystrom for commentary on border enforcement, interior immigration enforcement, and immigration detention.)
Brittney Nystrom focuses her advocacy on civil rights and due process issues facing immigrants and asylum seekers, the intersection between criminal and immigration law, and the need for comprehensive immigration reform. She has testified before the House of Representatives, Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism as an expert on immigration detention. Ms. Nystrom also participates in the BIA Pro Bono Project as a volunteer case screener.
Previously, Ms. Nystrom represented detained immigrants in removal proceedings and advocated for humane detention conditions as the Legal Director at the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (CAIR Coalition). She oversaw "Know Your Rights" presentations for immigrants detained by the Department of Homeland Security in several county jails across Virginia and mentored scores of pro bono attorneys handling cases referred by CAIR Coalition. Prior to joining CAIR Coalition, she was a litigation associate with Fried Frank LLP in the Washington, D.C. office. At Fried Frank, she represented several asylum seekers pro bono in addition to handling billable white collar defense and government contract matters.
Ms. Nystrom is admitted to the bar in D.C. and Illinois and is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and Detention Watch Network.
Katherine Vargas
Assistant Communications Director
(Contact Katherine Vargas for Spanish language media inquiries.)
Katherine Vargas spearheads media and communications efforts for the National Immigration Forum. She manages strategic communications, messaging and brand positioning for the Forum, including the Forum's national political and legislative campaigns to pass immigration legislation that positively impacts the lives of New Americans. Katherine is the spokesperson for the Forum in Spanish language media and she is a frequent guest commentator on major Spanish television outlets, including Univision, Telemundo and CNN en Español. Prior to the Forum, she worked at the National Immigration Law Center, the Washington Office of Latin America, both in Washington, D.C, and the International Rescue Committee in Miami, FL.
Katherine immigrated to the United States from her native Colombia in 1997.
