Humanizing Immigration with Professor Bill Hing

After 50 years of practicing and teaching immigration law, Professor Hing advocates for the dismantling of the US immigration law and enforcement system. Relying on personal experiences and other reported examples, he will recount his experience interviewing children in border patrol detention, representing asylum seekers within a biased system, advocating against the deportation of longtime residents –some with a criminal history deserving of a second chance, and dealing with immigration judges who believe attempted rape is not persecution or threaten to sick a dog on noisy children in the courtroom. He applauds those who are engaged in the disruption of the current system.


Bill Ong Hing is a Professor of Law and Migration Studies at the University of San Francisco, and Professor of Law and Asian American Studies Emeritus, at U.C. Davis. He founded the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco 1979 and helps to direct the USF Immigration & Deportation Defense Clinic. Professor Hing teaches Immigration Law & Policy, Introduction to Migration Studies, and Rebellious Lawyering. Throughout his career, Professor Hing has pursued social justice by combining community work, litigation, and scholarship. His books include Humanizing Immigration: How to Transform Our Racist and Unjust System (2023), American Presidents, Deportations, and Human Rights Violations (2019), Immigration Law and Social Justice (2018); Ethical Borders—NAFTA, Globalization and Mexican Migration (2010); Deporting Our Souls—Values, Morality, and Immigration Policy (2006), Defining America Through Immigration Policy (2004), and Making and Remaking Asian America Through Immigration Policy (1993). He was co-counsel in the U.S. Supreme Court asylum precedent-setting case INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca (1987) and also represented the State Bar of California before the California Supreme Court in In re Sergio Garcia (2014) involving bar membership for undocumented law graduates.