Kat Phan (She/Her) is NJAIJ's Policy and Research Associate, as well as an anti-detention organizer and graduate student at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Prior to joining our team, Phan led policy and demographic research on language access and local immigration policies at San Francisco’s Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs. She is the proud daughter of Vietnamese refugees and is committed to the liberation of all migrants from institutional and structural oppression.

  • As a child of refugees, I have experienced firsthand the necessity for culturally sensitive, trauma-informed policies and protected community spaces. My commitment to immigrant justice is rooted in my desire to co-create a world where immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees like my parents can be their fullest selves and live or dream as imaginatively and freely as they desire.

  • In my first few months with the NJAIJ team, we hosted a multilingual town hall with NJAIJ community members on the Values Act. Being able to witness true language access in practice and hear such intense commitment to liberation from incarceration and detention left me more convinced than ever that our immigrant communities will win.

  • “Be Not Afraid of Love” by Mimi Zhu has spoken to me more than any other piece of literature I’ve read in recent years. The book is an invitation to be more loving towards ourselves, our people, and communities that have been systematically denied access to healing. The writing is calming, reflective, and a reminder that personal and political change must come from a source of radical love.