Laura Hernández

Executive Director | She/her

Laura directs the development, vision, and mission of FFI to abolish the systems of oppression that have long been harming our communities and replace them with care and meaningful support. 

Laura works alongside the development, monitoring, operations, communications, decarceration, and policy teams to implement strategies that move FFI’s work toward a vision of abolition that empowers Black, brown, and Indigenous people. By centering the experiences of those who have been directly affected by the immigration and criminal legal systems, Laura seeks to change the way we work to dismantle these systems — from the inside out. 

Laura is formerly incarcerated. She has served more than 15 years in California youth, county, state, and immigration prisons. Laura’s parents brought her to the United States as a baby with hopes to escape the harms of poverty. Instead, Laura was met with bias and was targeted and criminalized at a young age. Eventually, she ended up with a life sentence for a crime she did not commit. However, from the inside, Laura advocated for herself and was finally released after 15 years. While incarcerated, she learned that being caged did nothing to help her rebuild her life, but community did. Laura’s experiences only fueled her passion to fight the systems built to oppress her. 

Laura brings to FFI over a decade of experience organizing and advocating in one of the most challenging environments a person can face, prison. While incarcerated, Laura actively participated in her community as a leader, mentor, and trainer to help improve morale and provide her peers with the tools they needed to thrive. She founded, co-founded, chaired, or led several organizations, including Victims Impact and Progress, Youth Mentor Organization, Long Termers Organization, and LifeScripting. Upon release, she continued to advocate not only for herself, but for others who have similarly been unfairly targeted and criminalized. She became the Coordinator for the Orange County Rapid Response Network, a grassroots organization that supports people navigating the immigration and criminal legal systems. As Coordinator, Laura was instrumental in leading policy advocacy efforts and coalitions, as well as doubling the amount of people served by the organization. She has been recognized by the Santa Ana City Council and honored by Women For: Orange County at the 2022 Suffrage Day. She has also been featured in the Gramercy Podcast and The People’s Coalition.    

Laura is as passionate about her family as she is about abolition. She is a fierce lover of the babies in her life and loves spending time with all of them. You will often find Laura organizing on the ground accompanied by her husband, sisters, parents, or kids — the whole family is a part of the movement. In her spare time, she enjoys music, cooking, and reading, but holds true to the belief that it all means nothing without each other.