Aster Zeleke, Deputy Director, Newark Asylum Office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Newark, NJ

Aster Zeleke is the Deputy Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Newark Asylum Office. Ms. Zeleke brings to her position a commitment to working with refugees, and first-hand knowledge of the refugee experience, having originally come to the United States as an Ethiopian refugee in 1983.

As a politically-active bank clerk and university student during the brutal Mengistu regime in Ethiopia, Ms. Zeleke was aware that she could ultimately be detained. As a result, in 1977, Ms. Zeleke applied for and received a scholarship to further her education in Romania earning a Master of Science degree in Economics from the University of Timisoara in 1982. With her student visa expiring, Ms. Zeleke and her husband had some critical life decisions to make. The Mengistu regime was still fully entrenched in Ethiopia so returning to her homeland was not an option. The two went to Greece and immediately began looking for refuge.

In August 1983, Ms. Zeleke and her husband arrived in the United States. Ms. Zeleke was committed to assisting other refugees like herself. She worked as a Resettlement Counselor with the Presbyterian Refugee and Immigrant Ministry Efforts in Philadelphia, PA, for eight years before joining the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, beginning her government career as a public servant.

Ms. Zeleke became a naturalized citizen on September 13, 1989, exactly 22 years to the day that she received this recognition.