Guerline M. Jozef: A Haitian-American Advocate Reimagining Migration Justice
Guerline M. Jozef is a Haitian-American human rights advocate, visionary strategist, and globally respected leader whose work at the intersection of migration, civil, social, and human rights has reshaped how Black migrants are seen, supported, and defended. As the Founder and Executive Director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), which is headquartered in San Diego with members across the United States, Guerline has built a Black-led, women-led organization dedicated to advancing dignity, safety, and justice for Black im/migrants of African descent, including Haitians, Africans, Caribbeans, LGBTQIA+ people, women, and survivors of violence. Her leadership centers those most often erased from migration narratives, pairing direct humanitarian response with legal advocacy and storytelling to confront the policies and practices that endanger Black migrant lives.
Honoring Impact at the Women Impact Awards
It is this sustained, transformative work that has led to Guerline being named a 2026 Women Impact Awards honoree, presented during Future Forward 2026, Caribbean Philanthropic Alliance’s annual global forum. Taking place February 9–12, 2026, in Kingston, Jamaica, Future Forward convenes leaders, creatives, advocates, and policymakers committed to shaping more equitable futures across the Caribbean, the U.S., and the global diaspora. The Women Impact Awards recognize women whose leadership does more than inspire. Their leadership changes outcomes, shifts power, and builds pathways toward justice where few previously existed.
Through the Haitian Bridge Alliance, Guerline has been at the forefront of humanitarian response and policy advocacy for Black migrants navigating some of the most punitive immigration systems in the world. Her work addresses urgent realities such as detention, deportation, family separation, and racialized exclusion, while also advancing long-term change. She is the co-founder of the Black Immigrants Bail Fund and the Cameroon Advocacy Network, and the creator of Tales from the Borderlands and Beyond, a platform that elevates migrant voices and reframes migration through a lens of humanity, agency, and truth. Across each initiative, Guerline ensures that those most impacted by migration policy are not spoken for, but centered.
From Community Advocacy to Global Influence
Guerline’s leadership has carried her from border communities to the world’s most influential decision-making spaces. She has testified before the United Nations, the U.S. Congress, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, bringing lived experience and community accountability into policy conversations that too often exclude them. Her voice has been amplified through major global media outlets including CNN, The New York Times, Forbes, MSNBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, Politico, The Grio, and Democracy Now. Her impact has been recognized with honors such as inclusion in POLITICO’s Most Influential People on Race and Police in the U.S., the BBC’s 100 Women of 2024, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, and the AFL-CIO’s 2024 George Meany–Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award.
As a Women Impact Awards honoree, Guerline M. Jozef represents the kind of leadership the Awards were created to uplift—principled, people-centered, and unflinching in the pursuit of justice. Her work reminds us that impact is not measured by visibility alone, but by the lives protected, the systems challenged, and the futures made possible when dignity is treated as non-negotiable. At Future Forward 2026 in Kingston, her leadership stands as both recognition and call to action: to imagine migration systems rooted in humanity, and to build them together.
