Claire Holba is an Immigration Policy Analyst at the Niskanen Center, where she leads Niskanen’s U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and humanitarian policy portfolio. She primarily focuses on building support and developing policy around Welcome Corps, Welcome Corps on Campus, and Welcome Corps at Work, including opportunities to engage states in sponsorship opportunities. Previously, Claire led research and human rights projects overseas with refugee communities in camps in South and Southeast Asia, developing education access for students displaced by conflict and building capacity of NGOs to document and report human rights violations.
Claire holds a Master of Science in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from DePaul University with a geographic focus on the Asia-Pacific. Her research on complementary pathways out of protracted displacement has been featured in the United Nations Refugee Higher Education Global Newsletter. She was a 2023 recipient of the U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship, a program equipping select graduates to contribute to U.S. economic competitive and national security. Through the program, she completed an intensive Mandarin Chinese language program in Taiwan during summer 2023 and she continues to study Chinese.
Claire is based in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she also co-founded Patchwork Indy, now one of the first Private Sponsorship Organizations in Indiana under the federal Welcome Corps program.