She is the deputy director of the National Economic Council in the Biden administration. She came to the spot light when she gave a White House press briefing last week about Biden’s policy to a tackle certain supply chain problems. Wearing Islamic hijab inside the White House press room, her photo was splashed across news and social media platforms garnering praise signaling an evident change from Trump’s era that was marred by Islamophobia.
Sameera Fazili is a daughter to Kashmiri immigrants, Mohammad Yusuf Fazili and Rafiqa Fazili, both doctors, who migrated to the US from Kashmir, India. She was appointed last month to the National Economic Council which considers economic policy matters and provides advice to the US president.
Prior to her appointment, she served as the director of engagement for community and economic development in the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (now on a temporary professional leave, as mentioned on the FRBA website). She graduated from Yale Law School in 2006. At Yale, she was the student chair of the Middle East Legal Studies Seminar and also served on the board of the Critical Islamic Reflections conference. Before law school, Sameera worked at Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights. While with Karamah, she testified before the US Congress on the religious freedom of Muslims in Western Europe. She also received a bachelor of arts in social studies from Harvard College.
Fazili was also a clinical lecturer at Yale Law School’s community and economic development clinic, where she helped start a CDFI bank and a local anti-foreclosure initiative, and expanded the clinic’s work to international microfinance.
Fazili is the second person of Kashmiri-origin and an Indian-American chosen to a key position in the incoming Biden administration. Her appointment has sparked jubilation among her extended family in Srinagar.
"We are very proud. Everybody in Kashmir should be proud as it is a proud moment for the whole of Kashmir," her uncle Rouf Fazili told PTI.
Fazili played a key role in one of the protests within four days of abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, ET has learnt. She supports ‘Stand with Kashmir’ (SWK) a Kashmiri diaspora-led international solidarity movement. In August 2019, following the abrogation of Article 370, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) introduced her as a member of SWK.
Fazili has also served in the Obama-Biden administration as a senior policy advisor on the White House’s National Economic Council and as a senior advisor at the US Treasury Department in both Domestic Finance and International Affairs.
Fazili is married and has three children. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and has extended family in Indian-administered Kashmir. Her sister Yousra Fazili, a human rights lawyer, testified at the November 2019 US Congressional hearing on the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. Her experience in international human rights and development includes work at the World Health Organization and United Nations High Commission for Refugees and her work has taken her to such places as Palestine, Kashmir, and Pakistan. Besides, she also worked at ShoreBank, the nation's first CDFI (community development financial institution) bank. Her work in finance has covered consumer, housing, small business and microfinance.
Prior to Fazili’s appointment, the Biden administration appointed another Kashmiri-origin Indian-American, Aisha Shah as Partnerships Manager at the White House Office of Digital Strategy. Before her White House appointment, Shah worked as an assistant manager on the Corporate Fund of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, supporting the first-ever expansion of a presidential memorial.
