Alma Maquitico

Executive Director

Alma’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.

 Alma has helped build grassroots networks to monitor and document human rights violations resulting from immigration enforcement in communities along the US-Mexico border. Alma has been engaged as a member of NNIRR since participating in the 2001 delegation to the UN World Conference Against Racism and Xenophobia (WCAR) in South Africa. She was also a contributing author and trainer to our BRIDGE popular education program, helping to develop human rights monitoring curriculum in 2005. Alma, based in El Paso, TX, is advancing NNIRR’s strategic human rights advocacy and organizing at the border, in national policy spaces and international migrant rights spaces, and engaging with partners to build intersectional solidarity within the movement. 

Alma comes to the role with twenty years of experience in grassroots organizing and human rights activism at the intersection of migration, gender, peasant territories, and human rights. She has developed grassroots networks to monitor human rights violations in the west Texas-southern New Mexico border corridor, and most recently, she was dedicated to rebuilding the social, ecological, and food territories of first-generation and migrant farmers living under the heavily militarized US-Mexico border zone. Alma is the author and co-author of various articles and publications, including NNIRR’s Documenting Human Rights Abuses to Build Community Power; Agroecological Approaches to Migration, Poverty and Landlessness; as well as various human rights reports and policy briefs. Her most recent publication is forthcoming, Food as Territory: Reclaiming the Food Territories of Migrants and Refugees.

Sarah Cruz

Texas Program Coordinator

Sarah Cruz is the Texas Program Coordinator for NNIRR. She focuses on advocacy along the US-Mexico border and will assist the organization in building grassroots power and community leaders through trainers circles and human rights institutes.

Before joining NNIRR, Sarah worked with a county agency that serviced low-income families in the Rio Grande Valley. She also previously worked with an interfaith organization where she advocated for immigrants’ rights and humane border policies. Through her work, Sarah has been involved with different coalitions, such as the No Border Wall Coalition.

She has a BS in political science from Texas A&M University and a MA in Global Policy Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, LBJ School. In her spare time, Sarah likes to bake, play Tetris, watch tv shows, or hang out with her two dogs, Ellie and Millie.

Ana Dominguez

Administrative Assistant

Ana is from Oakland, CA with working class immigrant roots from El Salvador and Mexico where her lived experiences helped ignite her passion for social justice and grassroots work. Through her work in NNiRR she hopes to  better help her beloved Oakland community and immigrant and refugee communities at large.

Ana identifies herself as a multidimensional worker who strives to bring a lot of corazon and humility to every task. She sees her work, from administrative duties to caring for loved ones back home, as service and a labor of love. Prior to working with NNIRR, Ana served as a teaching assistant in Laney College, mentoring students and providing guidance to resources. Ana graduated from Mills College with a B.A. in Ethnic Studies and also attended UC Berkeley where she studied Women and Gender Studies. 

Ana believes in NNiRR’s mission to promote a just immigration and refugee policy in the United States and to defend and expand the rights of all immigrants and refugees, regardless of immigration status. 

Assata Davis

Campaign Consultant

Assata graduated from Rutgers University with a BA in Political Science with a double-minor in Arabic and Spanish.

Assata uses her love of creativity, languages, and communication to effect positive social change. She participated in a year-long internship at NNIRR during her senior year, focusing on communications, social media outreach, and messaging design. She has come on board as a consultant to launch our Spotlight Mapping and Documentation for Human Rights on the Borderlands Campaign. Prior to working with NNIRR, Assata was a legal intern to Judge Hatchett, where she spent time advocating for the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act of 2018, and had the opportunity to research and speech-write on cases of police misconduct. As a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) advocate at her University, Assata worked directly with administrators through the organization she founded, True Inclusion, to implement more equitable admissions, develop new curriculum, and foster a more inclusive environment for students of color at the Honors College. She presented her work to new President Holloway and has influenced changes to the upcoming admissions cycle at Rutgers. Assata firmly believes that open-minded communication is a key ingredient for making a more inclusive future. This year, Assata is also participating in the Immigrant justice Corps Community fellowship, and is based in New York city gaining experience providing support for immigrants pursuing legal cases to adjust their status.

Guillermo Prado

Graphic Design

Guillermo has made NNIRR look great in print for over 20 years, conceptualizing and producing the graphic design and layout for the BRIDGE curriculum, Network News, toolkits, human rights reports, anniversary programs, Recipes on the Move cookbook, and countless flyers.

Having worked in the graphic communication field for over 30 years, Guillermo has served mostly small business, non-profit organizations, artists and art groups in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York, Singapore, Chile, and Maldives. Guillermo has collaborated with different groups on a variety of projects, including capital campaigns, films, and recordings. Mr. Prado is the founder and president of 8 point 2 design, as well as co-founder and principal of six word solutions, a marketing firm. Mr. Prado is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and English.

NNIRR Interns

We want to express our deep gratitude to our fabulous and talented intern team. ¡Mil gracias! 

Throughout this academic year, NNIRR hosted the following incredible interns. Each of our interns bring unique skills and experiences to their work at NNIRR. They have helped us dive deep with research on immigration and border policy, and have elevated our graphic messaging and social media communications, among many of the projects they have developed. The projects for this academic year have included:

  • Research: Border Mapping and Human Rights Spotlight Report
  • Education and resource development: Elections 2020: voting guides, tools and voter registration resources
  • Resource and social media outreach: Covid and immigrant communities
  • Research and support for international partnership: Mapping membership and international advocacy Bloque Latinoamericano
  • Graphic design and communications: Cultivating NNIRR’s social media presence

Summer 2021 Interns

Intern Team 2021

Spring 2021 Interns

Summer/Fall 2020 Interns

Zoom staff meeting