National Staff

Nana Gyamfi 

Executive Director

Nana Gyamfi received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University, and her Juris Doctorate from UCLA School of Law. She brings with her over three decades of service to the Movement for Black liberation, and over twenty years experience directing Black social justice organizations and networks. Nana is a human rights and criminal defense attorney, a professor in the Pan African Studies Department at the California State University Los Angeles, and radio personality who hosts 2 popular shows in Los Angeles, CA. She is also the president of the National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL).

As a seasoned organizer and activist, Nana has been involved with and led various local, national, and international social justice organizations for over thirty years. She is a Co-Founder and managing member of two Black-led and Black-focused organizations – Justice Warriors 4 Black Lives and Human Rights Advocacy. She is a co-founder and Core Team Member of Black August Los Angeles. She has also served as Executive Director of Black Women’s Forum, an organization founded by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who serves as its President.

Abraham Paulos

Deputy Director

Abraham Paulos is a seasoned communications expert, journalist, and movement leader who has advocated for human rights for more than a decade. Abraham is currently the Deputy Director of Communications and Policy of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI). He develops and implements BAJI’s overall communications strategy nationwide in collaboration with BAJI members and staff. Before joining BAJI, Abraham was the Executive Director of Families for Freedom (FFF), a position he held after facing immigration detention at Rikers Island and becoming a member of FFF.

Earlier in his career, Abraham was a researcher at Human Rights First, focused on immigration detention. He also served as Program Director at Life of Hope, a community-based organization in Brooklyn, which provides services to low-income immigrants and as the Communications Coordinator for WHY Hunger, a global NGO that tackles issues of hunger and poverty.  As a journalist, Abraham reported on urban policy and human rights for City Limits, the NYC civic affairs magazine, and for the Foreign Policy Association, writing about foreign policy and global issues. Abraham is a Stateless Eritrean refugee, born in Sudan and raised in Chicago. He is a graduate of George Washington University with a degree in International Affairs and a Masters at the New School University.

Communications

Nekessa Opoti

Communications Director

Nekessa Opoti is a former journalist, editor, producer, writer, communications strategist, and immigrant justice organizer. For over fifteen years, she worked as a journalist and print/web news editor, and publisher. Her work promotes a grassroots articulation of often unheard voices. Her work promotes a grassroots articulation of often ignored and marginalized voices. Her work challenges: racism, particularly anti-Black racism; class and workers rights;  migration and displacement; access to public education; state surveillance, gender, sexuality, identity, and belonging from a queer Black femme immigrant lens. 

For the past five years, her work as a communications strategist informs local, state, and federal policy while being anchored by community voices and experiences. She has worked on: education and healthcare access as well as immigration issues including driver’s licenses, detention & deportation defense, and advocacy for under and undocumented immigrants. She has consulted with local and national foundations, coalitions as well as government agencies agitating and pushing for an undoing of institutional harm and state violence. 

Nekessa is one of the co-founders of the Minnesota based Black Immigrant Collective and a member of the Black LGBTIA+ Migrant Project.

Nekessa grew up on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya where mangoes were in abundance. She now lives in Minneapolis, thousands of miles away from the equator.

Legal Staff

Tsion Gurmu

Legal Director

Tsion Gurmu is a Houston-based immigration attorney.  Tsion is the Founder and Director of the Queer Black immigrant project (QBip), a Black radical lawyering initiative which provides comprehensive legal representation to LGBTQIA+ Black immigrants while creating a safe space for clients to regain control over their voices through a storytelling project. QBip’s mission is to create a systemic response to meet the legal and social needs of LGBTQIA+ Black immigrants while elevating narratives that illuminate the global injustices of state-sponsored homophobia and anti-Black racism. Tsion has received recognition for her work at the intersection of international law and immigration by Preet Bharara and CAFÉ 100, change-makers taking action to address some of the most pressing problems in America and around the world. She was also selected as a 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policyhonoree and 2019 Okay Africa 100 Women honoree.

Tsion holds a B.A. in Political Science and History, with a minor in Human Rights from the University of Chicago. She also holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law. In law school, she focused on international human rights law and immigration law. She served as a legal advocate in the Advanced Immigrant Rights Clinic, a leading institution in both local and national struggles for immigrant rights that engages in direct legal representation of immigrants and community organizations. In this position she represented individuals in removal proceedings, detention litigation, and civil suits; she also represented community organizations in legislative campaigns to pass the New York DREAM Act. Tsion also managed a capacity-building project for a children’s rights organization in Sierra Leone, Defence for Children International-Sierra Leone, in coordination with New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. During her time in Ethiopia, Tsion worked with the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia assisting women in the struggle to secure full protection of their rights through training and advocacy workshops as well as small-scale research projects aimed at bringing about positive and progressive legal changes for Ethiopian women. Before moving to New York City, Tsion worked as an educator in Miami, FL with Teach for America.

Policy Staff

Ronald Claude

Policy and Advocacy Director

Ronald Claude was a Legislative Assistant with the Office of Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. He has done policy work on transportation, immigration, and foreign policy-related issues. As the proud son of immigrants, the immigrant story is one that he is deeply familiar with—and is the space and community where he would like to continue to serve. He is excited to join BAJI to ensure Black Migrants and the Diaspora as a whole is not left behind when we make policy/ In his spare time Ronald loves soccer and his favorite team is FC Barcelona, and can mostly be found playing or watching soccer in his free time.