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Emily Butera

Emily Butera serves as senior program officer for the Migrant Rights and Justice Program at the Women’s Refugee Commission, where she advocates for the protection of women, children and families impacted by immigration enforcement and detention and manages the program’s work on parental rights.

Emily was the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) author of the 2007 report on family detention, Locking Up Family Values (co-written with the Women’s Refugee Commission) and has authored and co-authored numerous Women’s Refugee Commission reports, including Torn Apart by Immigration Enforcement, a 2010 study of the impact of detention on immigrants’ parental rights. Prior to joining the Women’s Refugee Commission, Emily worked for Catholic Legal Immigration Network, where she conducted research and program development around citizenship and integration initiatives. She has also served as policy advocate at LIRS, and as the organization’s senior consultant for organizational capacity building. In addition, Emily has developed and managed youth, legal and welfare-to-work programs for immigrants and refugees and designed and facilitated coexistence programming for children from regions in conflict.

Emily holds an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a B.A. in Human Rights and Nationalism from Kenyon College.