Laila Ayub

Laila Ayub is an Afghan American lawyer and co-founder and director of Project ANAR, a grassroots, young women-led, Afghan community-based immigration organization in the U.S. Project ANAR has spearheaded immigration legal services, education and advocacy for Afghans nationally and in the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C. areas. Ayub helped launch Project ANAR in August 2021 and through her leadership, the organization has created legal resources to democratize access to immigration legal services for Afghans and made waves exposing disparities in U.S. government immigration responses. Project ANAR’s objectives include obtaining permanent status for Afghans in the U.S., advocating for the expansion of pathways for those seeking refuge and seeking an end to the systems that displace our communities. Ayub has over five years of experience as an immigration defense lawyer, primarily working alongside detained asylum seekers and leading collaborative immigration advocacy efforts. Her work has been covered in The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, Politico, Al Jazeera, the Associated Press, Reuters, TIME, CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, HuffPost, and more. She is based in northern Virginia.