Deputy Director of Immigrant & Racial Justice

Shiu-Ming Cheer

Shiu-Ming Cheer is CIPC’s Deputy Director of Immigrant & Racial Justice. In this role, she advocates for statewide and local policies that advance immigrant rights and protect people from criminalization, detention and deportation. Previously, she held the position of Deputy Director of Programs and Campaigns at CIPC.

Shiu-Ming has over 25 years of experience working at the intersection of immigrant rights, criminal legal reform and anti-state violence. She was a Soros Justice Fellow and Managing Attorney at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network’s Los Angeles Detention Project and a Children’s Attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona. She was also the Civil Rights Coordinator at South Asian Network and a Staff Attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services.

Most recently, she was the Director of Programs at the Asian Law Caucus, where she oversaw the integration of direct legal services, community empowerment, impact litigation and policy advocacy strategies in six issue areas. At the National Immigration Law Center, Shiu-Ming was the Director of Movement Building and Strategic Partnerships, where she worked on impact litigation and policy advocacy.

She graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a double major in Ethnic Studies and English Literature, and from UCLA School of Law’s Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. She has been a lecturer and adjunct professor at UCLA School of Law.

Apart from her day jobs, Shiu-Ming has continuously participated in volunteer grassroots and left organizing projects. She is on the Board of Directors for the Filipino Migrant Center and the UndocuBlack Network and has served on the boards of Khmer Girls in Action and the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA). She has received awards for her legal and community work from the National Lawyers Guild – LA, UCLA School of Law’s Public Interest Program, the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition, and KIWA, as well as for her work on the LA Justice Fund and LA Raids Response Network.

In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, hiking, discovering new places to eat, and admiring art.