Current Issues in Immigration

Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis. He teaches Immigration Policy, Judicial Process, Negotiations, Public Service Strategies, Asian American History, and directs the law school clinical program. Throughout his career, he has pursued social justice by combining community work, litigation, and scholarship. He is the author of numerous academic and practice-oriented books and articles on immigration policy and race relations. His books include Deporting Our Souls – Morality, Values, and Immigration Policy (Cambridge Univ. Press 2006), Defining America Through Immigration Policy (Temple Univ. Press 2004), Making and Remaking Asian America Through Immigration Policy (Stanford Univ. Press 1993), Handling Immigration Cases (Aspen Publishers 1995), andImmigration and the Law – A Dictionary (ABC-CLIO 1999). His book To Be An American, Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation (NYU Press 1997) received the award for Outstanding Academic Book in 1997 by the librarians' journal Choice. He was also co-counsel in the precedent-setting Supreme Court asylum case, INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca (1987). Professor Hing is the founder of, and continues to volunteer as General Counsel for, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco. He is on the board of directors of the Asian Law Caucus and the Migration Policy Institute. He also serves on the National Advisory Council of the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, D.C.

Sin Yen Ling

Sin Yen Ling is a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus focusing on immigrants rights. Her most current litigation includes Ahmadi v. Chertoff, a class action lawsuit addressing naturalization delays caused by the FBI name check process. It also includes complex litigation involving illegal detention of U.S. citizens; suppression cases in deportation involving constitutional violations; challenging material support to terrorism and general detention/deportation issues in Federal Court. She is a former staff attorney at the New York-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) where she has spent 6 years conducting litigation and advocacy in the areas of anti-Asian violence, racial profiling and immigrant detention/deportation. A native New Yorker, Ms. Ling was born in Manhattan's Chinatown to immigrant parents who worked in garment factories and restaurants. She is a graduate of New York University and City University of New York School of Law. Ms. Ling managed AALDEF's Immigrant Access to Justice Project which has been at the forefront of providing direct representation to South Asian, Arab, Filipino and Muslim immigrant detainees facing indefinite detention after September 11 and has been a leading advocate for the defense of civil liberties and civil rights of immigrants and their families.

Ms. Ling has been quoted in the New York Times, Newsweek, New Jersey Law Journal, Crain's New York Business and the Financial Times and has been profiled in the Village Voice. In 2002, she was selected as one of the Top 25 Lawyers Under 40 by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. In 2003, she was awarded the New York County Lawyer's Association's Public Service Award and the Joseph Minsky Young Lawyers Award by the American Immigration Lawyers Association. In 2005, she received the Alumni award from CUNY Law School's Public Interest Law Association, Proclamation of Service from New York City's City Council, and the Community Service Award from the Islamic Circle of North America.

Ms. Ling is fluent in Cantonese and conversational in Mandarin. She is a member of the New York State Bar, National Immigration Project, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

William Tamayo

WILLIAM R. TAMAYO (Bill Tamayo) was appointed in 1995 as the Regional Attorney for the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, San Francisco District. He currently directs the Commission's litigation and legal program in Northern California, Northern Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana.

From 1979 – 1995 he was a staff attorney and the Managing Attorney for the Asian Law Caucus. Inc. where he emphasized the practice of immigration and nationality law and civil rights litigation and advocacy involving employment discrimination, affirmative action, immigrant rights, voting rights, and the Census.

Mr. Tamayo has served as a speaker and trainer for the American Bar Association, National Employment Lawyers Association, Society of Human Resource Management (various chapters), American Immigration Lawyers Association, Kaiser Foundation, the State Bar of California, Latino/a Critical Legal Studies, U.S. Department of Justice, unions, law enforcement agencies, risk management companies in the construction industry, Silicon Valley employment attorneys and in-house counsel, employment practices liability insurance conferences, various industry trade associations, and many others. His publications include, inter alia, "The Role of the EEOC in Protecting the Civil Rights of Farm Workers", 33 UC Davis L.R. 1075 (2000), and "The Effects of Immigration Status on Employment Litigation After Hoffman Plastics Compound" (National Employment Lawyers Association, 2004 and 2008).

Mr. Tamayo has received several awards including the 1990 Award for Lawyering from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the 1993 Judge John Minor Wisdom Award from the American Bar Association (Section on Litigation), a 1993 Charles Bannerman Memorial Fellowship, the 1995 Carol King Award from the National Lawyers Guild National Immigration Project, the 1999 Jesse De La Cruz Community Service Award from California Rural Legal Assistance, the 2004 Joe Morozumi Award for Exceptional Legal Advocacy from the Asian American Bar Association, the 2004 Achievement Award from Filipinas magazine, the 2004 Accomplishment Award from the Asian Pacific Fund, a 2005 Trailblazer Award from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and the 2008 Government Employee Leadership Award from the Midwest Association of Farmworker Organizations (MAFO). He received his B.A. from San Francisco State University magna cum laude and his law degree (J.D.) from the University of California at Davis, King Hall.

Amagda Pérez

As executive director of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Amagda Pérez has extensive experience working with immigrants of varied nationalities and other disenfranchised communities. She brings a wealth of experience and expertise in immigration and poverty law to the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California, Davis School of Law, where she supervises second-and third-year law students in the preparation of deportation defense cases. "The work that the Immigration Law Clinic does in training law students to provide competent representation for indigent immigrant clients and providing students the opportunity to develop essential lawyering skills such as client interviewing, advocacy, and legal writing are an extremely valuable part of a student's legal education," Amagda Pérez says. The practical legal skills and training that the students receive in the Clinic also help them become more marketable. "We are constantly receiving calls from the various legal services organizations asking us to recommend our graduates for their programs." Employers are very interested in hiring law graduates with experience in client interviewing, legal research, advocacy and case management.