Jazmin Irazoqui-Ruiz

The Project

Jazmin is a Senior Attorney at the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center (NMILC), where she leads the economic justice and policy team. In this role, Jazmin provides education, consultations, pro se assistance, and direct representation to immigrants navigating the federal, state, and local business, tax, and licensure systems of entrepreneurship.

In December 2017, Jazmin became the first DACAmented attorney admitted to the New Mexico State Bar. This accomplishment resulted from her leveraging community organizing principles with creative lawyering to persuade the New Mexico Supreme Court to create a process for admitting DACAmented bar applicants in New Mexico. The lived experience of growing up undocumented and in a mixed-immigration status family was not easy but it showed her that even in systems of oppression, communities are resilient and find creative ways to survive. Jazmin is the right fit for the EJW Disaster Resilience Fellowship because she will apply this same creativity in her work as an attorney and policy advocate to build community power and let those directly impacted lead the work.

Fellowship Plans

Jazmin’s project aims to remove barriers to economic mobility of immigrant communities through education, direct representation, community organizing, movement lawyering, coalition building, and policy advocacy. Among other community coalitions and partners, Jazmin will work closely with the Color Theory Collaborative, which supports low-income, marginalized entrepreneurs and their families, by employing core strategies from partner organizations to develop innovative programs resulting in greater opportunity and economic equity for entrepreneurs. Moreover, the Color Theory partners align with a core mission of bridging identified systemic gaps to build an ecosystem of support to lift families out of poverty.