Edafe Okporo, Author of Asylum: A Memoir and Manifesto, to Headline Amica Center for Immigrant Rights’ 25th Anniversary Celebration
WASHINGTON – Acclaimed author and activist Edafe Okporo will headline Amica Center for Immigrant Rights’ 25th anniversary celebration, Defending One Another for 25 Years, at 6:30 pm on September 26th at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Tickets are free for members of the media and can be purchased by the public here.
Amica Center, an immigration legal defense and litigation organization, was formerly the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition.
In Asylum: A Memoir and Manifesto (Simon and Schuster), Edafe Okporo examines the circumstances that forced him to flee Nigeria—his accidental outing as a gay man—and the dystopian reality of seeking safety in the United States. Instead of finding freedom when he arrived, Okporo was locked up in the Elizabeth (NJ) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center for months, his fate uncertain.
“Growing up, the America I had seen on TV was a place with less segregation, a place of acceptance. But this—a warehouse with mattresses on concrete slabs, with one square of sunlight—was how I found America treating those who came seeking its freedoms,” he wrote.
Believing in the promise of the United States at its best, Edafe worked with lawyers to free himself and win asylum. At Amica Center’s 25th Anniversary Bash, Okporo will read from his “moving” and “dramatic” memoir (in the words of New York Times’ bestselling author David Ebershoff). Okporo and leaders of Amica Center are available for interview ahead of the September 26th celebration.
“Everyone has the right to be free, safe, and supported. Edafe Okporo’s life and work are a powerful example of these values in action,” said Kathy Doan, Chief Executive Officer of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, “He is helping to build a stronger United States by creating structures to welcome and sustain immigrants, and challenging us to be a better, more open, more inclusive society. We are thrilled Mr. Okporo will headline our 25th anniversary celebration, as we honor the freedom that our clients and lawyers have already won and recommit ourselves to the work ahead.”
Okporo is the founder and Executive Director of Refuge America, a non-profit working to “strengthen America as a place of welcome for displaced LGBTQ people.” He started Refuge America after winning the David Prize, sponsored by the Walentas Family Foundation as a “celebration of New Yorkers with ideas for extraordinary change.”
Authors featured at previous Amica Center events include César García Hernández, Padma Lakshmi, Valerie Luiselli, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, and Alejandra Oliva.
About the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights
Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, formerly known as CAIR Coalition, engages in unwavering legal defense and strategic litigation for immigrants facing detention or deportation, regardless of background, because everyone has the right to be safe, free, and supported.
CONTACT
Erin Barnaby, media@amicacenter.org