The New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice announced Amy Torres as the new Director of the statewide coalition beginning in January 2021.
The Alliance works to achieve local and state policies that welcome immigrants to become rooted in New Jersey. As the incoming director, Torres will lead a coalition of over 42 member organizations and three Alliance staff members to coordinate the policy and organizational priorities.
Torres brings seven years of immigrants’ rights policy advocacy and leadership experience, most recently as the Policy and Advocacy Director at the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) in New York City.
They also bring strong experience in coalition-building and advocacy in low-income, immigrant, and Asian and Pacific American communities, and in grassroots organizing in Hudson County. Torres’s work ethos is informed by their experience as a second-generation Filipinx immigrant tracing their roots from the Philippines to New Jersey.
"I am excited to join the NJAIJ whose advocacy is at the forefront of the immigrant justice fight in New Jersey. Amy Torres, incoming Director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said. "Firmly rooted in my identity and experience is the belief that human rights and liberties should not be subject to change because of something as arbitrary as birthplace, borders, or paperwork. Public policy must look to undo deeply entrenched harms and restore dignity to those most marginalized by existing systems of power. I look forward to working alongside the fierce champions at the Alliance who are leading the way for immigrants' rights, justice, and belonging."
In March 2020, Maneesha Kelker joined the Alliance as the Interim Director and the Alliance formed its search committee for the next director. Simultaneously, New Jersey responded to the global pandemic with an emergency statewide stay at home order. The resulting first wave of Covid-19 cases and massive job losses for undocumented immigrant workers and families were particularly devasting.
Under Kelkar’s leadership, the Alliance pivoted to address the urgent need for income relief for immigrants left out of state pandemic relief efforts, and the immediate need to release immigrants in detention facilities in order to diminish the risk of Covid19 outbreaks.
“I feel deeply honored to have had the opportunity to shepherd NJAIJ during its period of transition," Maneesha Kelkar, Interim Director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said. "Despite an unprecedented pandemic that changed the world as we know it, we continued to forge ahead, working alongside our members to fight for the rights of all immigrants. I am grateful to all the passionate activists and advocates I have met this year, including our dedicated staff – they have taught me what commitment means. I wish the Alliance the best in its unwavering determination to fight for dignity and respect for all immigrants in New Jersey.”
The Alliance was formed in 2014 with a handful of founding member organizations and one program coordinator. Since then, the organization has grown into a powerful force in achieving immigrants’ rights policies across the state.
In the six years since its founding, the Alliance achieved significant policy wins for immigrants, previously deemed too politically unviable for New Jersey. These achievements include:
- Municipal ID programs in municipalities across the state
- The 2018 Attorney General’s “Immigrant Trust Directive” which limits collaboration between local and state law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement
- The passage of the “Driver’s Licenses For All” legislation into law in 2019, which expands eligibility to standard driver’s licenses for nearly half-a-million undocumented immigrant residents in New Jersey
Guided by immigrant-led principles and democratic decision-making processes, the Alliance’s work is first informed by New Jerseyans most directly impacted by immigration policies, and then by those who work most closely with immigrants as advocates, community organizers, and community leaders.
On the horizon for the Alliance remains the achievement of the implementation of the driver’s licenses for all law, and the passage of fair and welcoming state policies legislation that would allow immigrants to live without fear of immigration enforcement in New Jersey. Just this week, the Alliance worked with our partners to introduce legislation to ban any new, renewed, or expansion of immigration detention agreements in New Jersey.
In 2021 and beyond, the Alliance will push to achieve this legislation as well as other policies to make New Jersey a more fair and welcoming place for all immigrants regardless of their status.
Lastly, the New Jersey Alliance For Immigrant Justice will continue to support new grassroots community organizations working in immigrant communities.
In particular, uplifting immigrant communities which are often invisibilized within New Jersey’s immigrants’ rights advocacy such as Arab, Black, African, Asian, South Asian, Filipinx, and migrant agricultural workers. To this end, this year the Alliance welcomed three new members including Migrante NJ, Palestinian American Cultural Center, and CATA - The Farmworkers Support Committee.