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Meet Lisa Durán: CIRC’s new Executive Director!

September 2, 2020
What's New at CIRC
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The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition’s boards of directors proudly announce Lisa Durán as the organization’s Executive Director. After serving the organization as the interim ED for the past eight months, Lisa has accepted the full time role and will begin serving in this capacity immediately. This concludes an ongoing leadership transition process announced in January.
“After a thorough search and interview process, we feel Lisa is the best candidate to move the organization forward in our work for Immigrant Rights. We believe strongly that the effort she has put forth as the interim ED is further indication of the commitment that Lisa has for the organization’s goals and values,” said Jossy Martínez, chair of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition board of directors.

Growing up in the Chicano movement of southern California and having worked in the non-profit sector for over 35 years, Lisa Durán is a committed advocate for inclusion, equality, and justice. She has worked for decades to build the immigrant rights movement in Colorado, including co-founding Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition in 2002. In addition, Lisa worked with Rights for All People, Colorado’s first immigrant-led immigrant rights organization based in Aurora, Colorado. After eight years as a volunteer, she became its first ED, serving for 11 years. She also co-founded the Aurora Human Rights Center, an immigrant and refugee integration project in Colorado’s most diverse city. Lisa now returns to CIRC to continue the movement she helped begin.

“I am so happy to be coming home to an organization I helped establish in 2002. To see how CIRC has evolved is deeply inspiring. It has never been more urgent to create the change we want to see by working in unity, learning from each other, and building power to bring new leadership – immigrant leadership – to the work of building a better society for all,” said Lisa Durán, executive director of Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.

Durán joins the organization at a pivotal time for the immigrant rights movement in Colorado and throughout the United States.

“In the last four years, we have seen unprecedented attacks on immigrant communities and the entire immigration system in our country. In spite of these challenges, our movement has grown and we have continued to win key victories for immigrants in Colorado while working with our national partners throughout the United States. We have increased the organizational outreach of our coalition to every corner of our state to ensure that every immigrant in Colorado has a voice in our fight for justice,” said Lisa Durán, “Far from living in fear, immigrant communities in Colorado have been emboldened to fight for change and to stand up for their right to exist. Ours is a diverse coalition that will continue the fight for inclusion and justice no matter what. We are undocumented and unafraid. We are refugees, welcoming, and here to stay. We are DACA recipients demanding a path to citizenship. We are allies creating an America of diversity and equality. We are naturalized citizens ready to vote.

To quote the late Cesar Chavez, ‘There’s no turning back…We will win. We are winning because ours is a revolution of mind and heart…We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.’

On behalf of our coalition and all immigrants in Colorado: ¡Adelante!”