James Claffey, program officer for the Long Island Community Foundation, has been involved in immigration issues and civil rights on Long Island for more than a decade. Prior to his work on Long Island, Claffey worked as a missionary in Panama for eighteen years. Starting in the mid-1990s, he was the director of the Immigrant Services Department of Catholic Charities on Long Island where his efforts were threefold: to offer direct services to immigrants, facilitate refugee resettlement, and promote immigrant issues through advocacy and public speaking. Claffey later became the advocacy director for the New York Immigration Coalition — a leading immigrant organization working on both the state and national levels. He is also a founding and current board member of the Long Island Immigrant Alliance, a diverse coalition of organizations working for immigrant rights and against nativist backlash.
