Kareem Shora
Kareem Shora, JD, LL.M., is the Chief Operating Officer at Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. He brings more than 25 years of civil rights, civil liberties, immigrant advocacy, and violence prevention expertise in the non-profit advocacy and U.S. Government sectors. He started his career at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) a year before the 9/11 attacks and worked closely with Advancing Justice | AAJC and other coalition partners.
Prior to joining Advancing Justice | AAJC, Kareem served in several federal leadership roles. Most recently, he was Branch Chief with the National Preparedness Directorate at FEMA, where he coordinated efforts to draft a national implementation strategy to enhance state, local, and the private sector to protect, prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from manmade catastrophic incidents. Previously, Kareem was a senior executive serving as Deputy Director and then the acting Director for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3), overseeing 46 federal staff, three contract teams, and a multimillion-dollar budget to spearhead the public health-informed approach to the prevention of targeted violence, including hate crimes. He was also the inaugural Executive Vice President at Human Rights First, leading approximately 60 attorneys, policy advocates, and technology professionals. He successfully pioneered the sector’s first Extremism and Human Rights Program. Kareem also served as Section Chief for Community Engagement at the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) for approximately 12 years.
Fluent in Arabic and English, he has testified in Congress, before international security bodies including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and served on the G8 Experts Roundtable on the Prevention of Terrorism. In 2009 Kareem was appointed by the Secretary of Homeland Security as the first nonprofit sector representative on the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). To date, he remains the youngest and only civil rights expert to be appointed to HSAC.
Kareem graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Marshall University, earned his JD from West Virginia University College of Law, and an LL.M. in International Legal Studies (Human Rights) from the American University Washington College of Law. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife, three children, and parents.