Executive Director
Status: Part time, 20+ hours/week
Location: Remote/work from home but prefer candidate that lives in South Florida to facilitate travel to local detention centers, press conferences and actions.
Application Deadline: Until position is filled.
In lieu of a cover letter, please briefly respond to the following questions. Please send your responses and resume to bud@immigrantactionalliance.org for consideration.
- Why have you applied for the Executive Director position with Immigrant Action Alliance? When are you available to start?
2. What was the most significant campaign or action that you were a part of? How did you support the planning and implementation? What was the result? How did you feel about it and what did you learn?
3. Please tell us about any experience you have had working towards the abolition of immigration detention or prisons. What is your position or opinion about abolition?
4. What qualifies you for this position with Immigrant Action Alliance?
5. What do you feel have been your greatest personal and professional strengths and challenges in your work with immigrants in the past? (If N/A to immigrants, please share past work experiences in social justice).
Background
Immigrant Action Alliance (IAA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization that provides direct support to our immigrant community, including hundreds of people detained at Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Krome Service Processing Center in Miami, and Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny. We have been leaders in the fight to shut down the Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven; currently, ICE has ceased detaining people there as of March 2022. We are currently leading a fight to shut down the Baker County detention center, expand our Krome Visitation Program among supporting other initiatives.
Summary of Principal Responsibilities:
The Executive Director reports to the Board Chair and works with the Campaign Organizer and members of allied organizations to provide support to immigrants and work to abolish immigrant detention. The Executive Director is responsible for running our visitation program at the Krome detention center, applying for grants, and supporting with campaign events as needed.
Specific Responsibilities:
- Facilitate the Krome Visitation program by scheduling volunteer visits with Krome staff, recruiting and training new volunteers to visit and raising awareness of the visitation program in the community.
- As needed, help fulfill requests for assistance finding sponsors, transportation or other support for people being released from detention.
- Communicate with people in detention to offer support and learn about conditions.
- Apply for grants to fund direct material support to people in ICE detention, fund staff payroll and other campaign activities.
- Attend, as able, a once weekly event in Miramar to offer support to local immigrants.
- Maintain social media pages (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) and update website.
- Suggest and help organize events including rallies, press conferences and more.
- Speak at press conferences and community events to raise awareness of issues and of organizational campaigns and ways for volunteers to get involved.
- Attend bi-weekly strategy meetings among 20+ coalition partners.
- Serve on coalition working groups (flexible based on strengths and experience).
- Work in solidarity with detained people, following their lead in how they want to be supported–whether through research, public reporting, connection to legal or financial resources, etc.
- Work with Board Chair to maintain Agenda and Minute documents for quarterly Board meetings. Take notes, present on activities to the board and maintain copies of Agendas, Minutes and other documents in Google drive folder.
Required Qualifications:
- Works collaboratively in multicultural contexts and in solidarity with detained people and their families.
- Communicates well, including solid writing, speaking, listening and facilitation skills.
- Embodies IAA’s core values (see below).
- Thinks strategically about both the success of the shut down campaign and the needs of the coalition.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Bilingual – English & Spanish preferred.
- Direct experience with the criminal justice system and/or detention is a plus.
COMPENSATION: $25.00 per hour
BENEFITS AND PERKS: Paid time off; flexible schedule; remote work; motivated, passionate, and knowledgeable team; respect for non-working hours. This position does not include health insurance at this time.
Immigrant Action Alliance is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified persons are encouraged to apply regardless of criminal record, their religious affiliation, race, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.
Immigrant Action Alliance Core Values
- We are dedicated to abolishing immigration detention while supporting the organizing and power-building initiatives of those of us who are most impacted. We support policies that advocate for improved conditions of confinement provided that they do not conflict with our goal of ending the detention system in its entirety.
- We are a coalition of people who have directly suffered the injustices of immigration detention and people in solidarity. We are guided by the experiences and leadership of those who are or have been on the inside. Forging meaningful person-to-person connections is transformative and foundational to our movement.
- We know that the immigration detention system is built upon a long history of white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism. It intentionally functions to dispossess marginalized communities and peoples of their homes and their histories.
- We understand that our service and advocacy efforts, including visitation, can never be politically neutral. We reject any framework that is purely charitable and replicates structural power inequalities at the interpersonal level.
- We recognize that the U.S. immigration detention system is the largest in the world and that the U.S. government and prison-industrial complex have played an active role in the development and infrastructure of detention systems in other countries. By changing the ways that immigrants are treated here, we are part of an international movement to transform state and community responses to migration so that immigrants are no longer caged but welcomed.