Nomination from: APAP Board Member Angelica Jongco and Chris Punongbayan

Sin Yen Ling, Asian Law Caucus Staff Attorney has devoted her career to helping some of the most vulnerable among us – immigrants facing deportation and in detention.  The demand for these services far outpaces the supply of lawyers willing to provide representation.

In 2010, she represented Steve Li. Li, a 20-year-old City College of San Francisco student, was picked up by ICE on September 15 and held for two months in a detention facility in Arizona, awaiting deportation to Peru, where he had not lived since age eleven. As Steve’s lawyer, Sin Yen worked tirelessly to prevent his deportation. She collaborated with community supporters to persuade Senator Feinstein to introduce a private bill granting a green card to Steve, who has become an inspiring DREAM Act advocate in his own right. Also this past year, along with ALC, she also continued to build on a successful change to national ICE policy making it easier for U.S. citizens wrongfully detained by ICE to secure release by monitoring the implementation of this new policy and meeting with Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren to educate her on the issue.

Sin Yen has an extensive and notable history as a direct service attorney and advocate serving AAPI immigrant communities. In 1999, Sin Yen joined the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) in New York, where she represented victims of anti-Asian violence. In the wake of 9/11, Sin Yen was key in mobilizing AAPI communities to respond to hate crimes and provided critical representation to dozens of Muslim immigrants who were detained.  Since then, Sin Yen has become one of the nation’s leading immigration advocates, having represented hundreds of immigrants facing detention and deportation. In 2007, she joined the staff of ALC (SF), where she has continued her important work on behalf of AAPI immigrant communities.  In 2009, as ICE conducted immigrant raids in the sanctuary city of San Francisco, Sin Yen helped form the San Francisco Rapid Response Network to train interested attorneys to help provide representation to raid detainees in the event of an ICE raid.  She also works on a class action lawsuit, Ahmadi v. Chertoff, addressing naturalization backlogs.

Our nation faces a crisis in how we treat the most vulnerable among us.  There are those who want to round up all immigrants and send them away, and sometimes it seems like that’s what the government is trying to do.  In this climate of mass deportation and detention of immigrants who want merely to be contributing members of our society, we need more folks like Sin Yen who will stand up against these injustices and provide a voice to these underrepresented communities.  Sin Yen also brings special skills as a fluent Cantonese speaker to be able to work with the large Bay Area Chinese population.  Through her work at Asian Law Caucus, she provides compassionate emergency representation to immigrants from all backgrounds.

Despite the incredible odds she faces on behalf of her clients and the climate of enforcement and anti-immigrant hysteria, Sin Yen is a tireless advocate who is always willing to take on even the most long-shot cases.  Not only is she an excellent lawyer, she is also a fierce organizer and leader, who sees the big picture and seeks to empower communities to take broader action.  How much she is able to take on and move forward is truly an inspiration.

Sin Yen is universally respected and admired for her work ethic, wicked sense of humor, and compassionate spirit.  Even though her caseload keeps her incredibly busy, she has always found time to mentor countless new AAPI advocates and take on tough challenges.