Joann Bautista is the Special Projects Manager at ACLU of Maine, where she works closely with the Executive and Deputy Directors. She joined the organization in January of 2020.
Most of Joann's professional background is based in immigration work. Recently, Joann was working on federal immigration policy in Washington, D.C. as a policy associate for the National Immigrant Justice Center, a national non-profit dedicated to ensuring human rights protections and access to justice for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
Joann is a proud graduate of the University of Maine School of Law, graduating cum laude. As a student, Joann was very active in the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic and a Fellow in the Admissions Department. After her first year of law school, Joann was awarded a fellowship at Yale Law School's Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization in the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. The following summer, she was a legal intern at Kids in Need of Defense, a national non-profit which provides legal services to unaccompanied children and refugees.
Before moving to Maine to go to law school, Joann, an Iowa native, worked as a paralegal at Vondra & Malott, PLC, an immigration law firm based in Iowa City, Iowa. Joann graduated from the University of Iowa with bachelor's degrees in journalism and international studies.
