Elica Vafaie

The Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund today announced it has hired Elica Vafaie as program director for its Immigrant Rights program. In this position, she will lead strategies and partnerships to build the power and amplify the voices of immigrants to find safety, opportunity, and representation in California and nationwide.

Elica comes to Haas Jr. with extensive experience building and managing initiatives and programs focused on advancing justice, equality, and opportunity for immigrants. Most recently, she served as interim executive director with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF), helping lead the organization’s policy advocacy, litigation, and direct legal representation on behalf of immigrants and people of color alongside a network of 1,000 pro bono volunteers.

Prior to LCCRSF, Elica was a Staff Attorney and Program Manager of the National Security & Civil Rights Program at Advancing Justice—Asian Law Caucus (ALC). During her tenure, she led several rapid response efforts focused on advancing civil rights, immigrant rights, and racial justice. Earlier, Elica worked as the supervising attorney to establish the University of California Legal Services Center serving the immigration-related legal needs of undocumented and immigrant UC students and their immediate family members, as well as mixed-status families across California and the UC system.

She has experience in philanthropy as well, having served as the Project Director of the One Nation Initiative at the California Community Foundation in Los Angeles where she managed the first philanthropic program in Southern California for Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian nonprofit organizations.

A native of California, Elica grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the proud daughter of immigrants from Iran. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine, she earned a law degree from the UC Davis School of Law.