Biography
Sarnata Reynolds is an international human rights lawyer and an expert on refugee and migrants' rights, statelessness and the right to nationality, and the rights of displaced persons during humanitarian crises. She is the Policy Lead for humanitarian campaigning at Oxfam International, and previously led Amnesty International’s advocacy on negotiations for the UN High-Level Meeting on Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants in New York.
Between 2011 and 2016, Sarnata served as both the Senior Advisor on Human Rights and the Program Manager for Statelessness at Refugees International, where she was responsible for leading the organization's analysis of international humanitarian responses from a human rights perspective. Sarnata led field research and produced reports on humanitarian needs and human rights concerns in Bangladesh, El Salvador, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Turkey, among other countries.
Sarnata spent the previous four years as Amnesty International USA's Director for Refugee and Migrants' Rights, serving as a lead researcher on two groundbreaking reports, and spearheading AIUSA's policy and advocacy strategies in these areas. Earlier in her career, Sarnata defended refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in deportations proceedings before the US immigration and federal courts.
Sarnata is a frequent author and her publications include Persecucion, politica y protección en Estados Unidos: encontrando un refugio frente al crimen organizado en las América (Persecution, politics and protection in the United States: finding a shelter against organized crime in the Americas) (December 2015), and the iBook, Who Is Dayani Cristal: An Examination of Modern-Day Migration (May 2014). She has testififed before the US Congress on many occasions and been a guest on PBS NewsHour, NPR News, CNN International, ABC News, Univision, and NPR's Latino USA, among other media outlets.