Kelly Ryan
President, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA
Kelly Ryan is President of Jesuit Refugee Service/USA. She has decades of experience working in humanitarian, human rights, international and immigration and human rights law and policy in the U.S. government and at an international organization. She has negotiated treaties at the Department of State and handled complex litigation for the Department of Justice. She was the founding chair of the Interagency Naturalization Working Group, created by the White House under President Biden’s Executive Order 14012, and served as a Senior Advisor in the Director’s Office at USCIS. She was seconded to the International Organization for Migration and served as Director of the Intergovernmental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (IGC) in Geneva, Switzerland from 2013-2019. Prior to the IGC, she served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Immigration in the DHS Office of Policy from 2010-2013. From 2002-2009, she was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) leading U.S. government policies on refugee assistance, admissions, migration, and population issues. During her tenure at DOS, she led inter-agency efforts to reform the United States refugee admissions program which had been debilitated by term structural issues and pauses implemented after 9/11. Ms. Ryan has advised United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as a member of its advisory group of eminent persons. She has taught refugee and asylum law and the ethics of integral economic development.