ORAM appoints new ED

Steve Roth has been tapped to head the Organization for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration.

ORAM announced Roth’s appointment as the LGBT refugee and asylum organization’s new executive director July 16.

Roth, 49, is a gay man and succeeds founder and longtime executive director Neil Grungras, who announced he was stepping down in March.

“I’m extremely excited by this new role and this new opportunity,” said Roth, adding he was looking forward to building on Grungras’ work.

Roth recognized that refugees, asylum seekers, and migration are making headlines daily.

“It’s an important topic for our time and where sexual orientation and gender identity minorities … fit within that is really important,” he said. “Personally, I don’t feel like [LGBTQI refugees have] been enough a part of the broader conversations that have been happening. That’s something that we want to change.”

ORAM, founded in 2008, was the first to recognize the needs of, and serve, LGBT refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants worldwide. The organization became a member of Alight (formerly American Refugee Committee), its parent organization, in 2017.

“I am delighted to welcome Steve Roth into the ORAM family. His dedication and experience in advocating for the most marginalized will be a great asset to ORAM,” said board Chair Rochelle Fortier Nwadibia in a news release announcing Roth’s appointment. “Steve brings to the job an exceptional combination of energy, sensitivity and proven leadership, and I am excited to see ORAM’s future under his leadership.”

Alight CEO Daniel Wordsworth praised Roth’s hiring in the release, stating that he is “exactly what’s needed” for the organization’s future.

“Steve brings a wealth of experience advocating on behalf of LGBTIQ people, including years campaigning internationally for workplace inclusion and equality,” said Wordsworth. “He’s exactly what’s needed as ORAM works to deepen its impact and support for LGBTIQ and extremely vulnerable refugees around the world.”

Roth co-founded and directed Alturi, a global LGBT organization, in 2015 before he built the Out & Equal Workplace Advocates‘ Global Initiatives as its senior director. Roth also founded, and was a principal of, OutThink Partners, a Beverly Hills-based marketing communications firm and served as a communications consultant for Equality California.

ORAM’s future

Three weeks into the job when the Bay Area Reporter spoke with him during a phone interview July 22, Roth was already busy working on identifying the needs and current landscape of LGBT refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. He was also taking stock of the organization’s resources and partnerships.

“One of the things that I’m excited about is coming in to see where the needs are today,” Roth said.

ORAM’s budget is $500,000, Roth said. According to its 2017 IRS Form 990, the most recently available filing on GuideStar, Grungras’ salary was just over $99,000.

Roth will be heading up the organization from his base in Los Angeles with the support of three full-time team members based in Berlin, he said.

Roth has already noted the rapidly changing landscape for people fleeing their homelands for better lives in more stable countries. The shift from welcoming immigration policies to a nationalistic focus in many countries is changing ORAM’s original resettlement plan to supporting refugees and migrants in their current locations.

Roth said that the “door is being closed” on past strategies of getting LGBT migrants out of secondary countries, like Turkey and Kenya, which traditionally temporarily hosted refugees, and resettled into their permanent host countries as fast as possible. Refugees and asylum seekers are staying longer in secondary countries.

Additionally, new secondary countries are emerging. It is starting to appear that Mexico is also becoming a secondary country hosting the migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, he said, pointing out the ongoing migration to there from Central and South America.

“Mexico is going to kind of become that transit country,” he said. “I suspect that’s going to leave a lot more LGBTQI refugees in Mexico, probably in some kind of refugee state or status.”

Roth, who hasn’t been to the U.S.-Mexico border to meet with LGBT asylum seekers yet, doesn’t know how many LGBT people in Central and South America, particularly transgender women, are at various stages of their asylum journey. What he does know is that President Donald Trump’s administration “is changing the rules by the day to make it even more difficult for asylum seekers to even make a case and that’s going to impact people.”

Migration from Latin America is new terrain for ORAM, which has worked mostly in Turkey assisting refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.

“It’s not an area that ORAM has worked in in the past, immigration coming from Latin America,” he said, stating that it’s definitely “part of the changing landscape that we are going to look at and see how we can bring our skills or resources to help these people in need.”

Roth plans to continue working in areas where ORAM became a leader if it meets current conditions, needs, and resources. At the same time, due to the shifting landscape surrounding immigration he’s keeping his eyes open for where ORAM is needed, which includes areas where the organization hasn’t ventured into before, he said.

For more information, visit http://www.oramrefugee.org.

Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at WhatsApp: 415-517-7239, or Skype: heather.cassell, or oitwnews@gmail.com.

Updated, 8/2/19: This article was updated to include ORAM’s current budget figure.