Zefitret Abera
Molla

Zefitret Abera Molla is a research associate for Immigration team at American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, Molla was a graduate student assistant at the University of San Francisco, where she, among other things, worked on a book project with an interdisciplinary team of scholars examining how women have shaped the Catholic social tradition.

Molla received her bachelor’s degree in French law and political sciences from the Université Jean Moulin Lyon III in Lyon, France, and holds a master’s in migration studies from the University of San Francisco. Molla has experience working with asylum seekers on issues ranging from language access to social integration services, and she has conducted extensive fieldwork with migrants in Tijuana, Mexico City, and Tapachula, Mexico. Her master’s thesis focused on the experiences of Black African and Haitian migrants forced to remain in Mexico due to restrictive U.S. and Mexican immigration and asylum policies. She is also a former Americorps volunteer with City Year of San Antonio, Texas.