CO-FOUNDER + CO-DIRECTOR

Laila Ayub is an immigration attorney and Co-Director of Project ANAR. Prior to co-founding Project ANAR as an emergency response effort in August 2021, Laila was Special Projects Attorney at RAICES, where she coordinated advocacy efforts alongside asylum-seeking families and individuals detained in ICE custody in Texas. Through that work, she led collaborative campaigns, tracked detention conditions, assisted in litigation efforts, filed civil rights complaints, and directly represented families and individuals in immigration proceedings, towards the goal of obtaining their release and ultimately abolishing detention. Laila is Afghan and has a background in workers rights and community and political organizing. She is based in the DMV region.

LEGAL ASSISTANT + PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Juliette Chisam-Majid is a Legal Assistant and Program Director with Project ANAR. Prior to working with Project ANAR, Juliette was a legal volunteer helping with Humanitarian Parole applications with Project ANAR and worked in biotech. Juliette is an Afghan American and received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of San Diego, and is expected to receive her Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Washington - Seattle in 2024.

CO-FOUNDER

Saamia Haqiq is a Co-Founder and former Program Coordinator with Project ANAR. She has over 6 years of experience working in immigration law, including assisting in refugee resettlement, filing business visa applications with USCIS, coordinating pro bono partnership efforts, and consolidating resources for Afghans in the immigration process, with the ultimate goal of reshaping U.S. immigration pathways. As an Afghan American, she speaks Dari and has worked closely with clients to help file humanitarian parole, asylum (affirmative), and family-based green card applications. Saamia received her Bachelor's degree in Political Science from UC Berkeley in 2017 and is attending UC Law SF in Fall 2023.

IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY + PRO BONO DIRECTOR

Belinda Liu joined Project ANAR as an Immigration Attorney and Program Director in 2022, where she focuses on developing and implementing innovative legal assistance models to maximize the capacity of legal services providers to meet the needs of newly arrived Afghans. She has been practicing immigration law since 2018 and has volunteered extensively with human rights organizations across four continents. She is passionate about increasing access to justice for the most vulnerable by providing compassionate, culturally competent, trauma-informed legal aid, and training others to do the same.

IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY + PROJECT COORDINATOR

Sara Kohgadai is an immigration attorney and Project Coordinator with Project ANAR. Her passion for immigration is rooted in personal experience as a first-generation Afghan-American. Sara has been actively involved in the immigration field for many years; volunteering with nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area and establishing her solo practice. In response to the arrival of Afghan parolees in 2021, Sara partnered with the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant to prepare affirmative asylum petitions for the newly arrived Afghan community. Sara joined the team in June 2023 to expand our services for parolees in the Bay Area. As a Project Coordinator at ANAR, Sara continues to work with Afghan parolees while advocating for policy changes towards a more just system, promoting freedom of movement for all.

LEGAL FELLOW

Steffi Colao joined Project ANAR as a Legal Fellow in fall 2023 with support from the Promise Institute for Human Rights Fellowship. Her work with ANAR focuses on providing affirmative and defensive asylum assistance, while also engaging in broader legal advocacy for the rights of Afghan refugees. Prior to joining ANAR, Steffi worked for several immigration and human rights organizations, including the ILRC, Reprieve, and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. Steffi is passionate about challenging the way the U.S. government invokes national security to block migration, and she's worked on cases contesting terrorism charges, extradition orders, extrajudicial execution, and abuses in detention. Steffi graduated from UCLA Law in 2023, and she is expected to participate in ECCHR's Critical Legal Training in Border Justice summer 2024. She is based in California.

CO-FOUNDER + ADVISOR

Wogai Mohmand is an attorney based out of Los Angeles. Wogai co-founded Project ANAR in August 2021 to assist Afghans in accessing immigration pathways to the United States. Her work with ANAR now focuses on advocacy efforts, specifically issues related to AAA, continuing parole status, and immigration legislation. Wogai has worked on social justice issues for years, including prison abolition, eviction defense, civil rights, and other immigration issues.

CO-FOUNDER AND FISCAL SPONSOR LIAISON

Roxana Moussavian helped co-found Project ANAR in August 2021, and continues to support Project ANAR as a friend and advisor. She is also an attorney and Co-Director of Pangea Legal Services, an immigration defense non-profit based in San Francisco and San Jose, California. At Pangea Legal Services, Roxana has filed and litigated three habeas petitions arguing that ICE custody is a form of disability discrimination and that Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act warrants release from custody as a reasonable accommodation. She recently co-authored an article about this novel legal theory, which was published in the Harvard Law & Policy Review. Roxana is passionate about collective action that builds agency and creates joy for and with women and non-binary people, people with disabilities, Muslims, and immigrants. She is Muslim, second-generation Iranian, and lives with disabilities in the Bay Area.

CO-FOUNDER

Susan is an immigration attorney at Centro Legal de la Raza, where they represent detained immigrants in deportation and custody proceedings, and collaborate with organizers to uplift the demands of incarcerated people and push towards prison abolition. In 2021, they co-founded and co-organized Project ANAR, and served as liaison to Centro Legal. They are a former Equal Justice Works fellow, and previously interned at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, the East Bay Community Law Center, Legal Aid At Work, and Pangea Legal Services. Prior to law school, Susan was a community organizer in Providence, Rhode Island, and worked on campaigns for immigrants’ rights, racial justice and police accountability, tenants’ rights, and education equity.