Q&A with Immigrant Rights Staff Attorney So Young Lee

So Young Lee is a staff attorney in the Immigrant Rights program. She provides direct legal services to immigrants who are detained and facing deportation. So Young first joined Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus in 2013 to organize with undocumented API youth and rejoined in 2019 as a Bridge Fellow. In law school, she interned with the Immigration Defense Unit of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office and at a private public interest firm in its deportation defense practice. So Young received her law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law.

The following piece is an edited transcript of a conversation between So Young and Alana Yee, a volunteer with the ALC communications team.

Can you describe the journey that brought you to ALC?

I was first introduced to ALC in late 2012. Leading up to that time, I had testified before an AB 540 task force as the only undocumented API student and left college seeking opportunities to serve and connect with undocumented communities. I ended up volunteering at an organization to analyze intakes for legal remedies, and when DACA was enacted, they referred me to ALC. ALC became somewhat of a political home for me after a community advocate plugged me into ASPIRE, the first undocumented API group in the U.S. I found a sense of community with ASPIRE members in our shared struggles and gained a deeper political orientation around our personal experiences and the deportation system. We worked to galvanize undocumented youth, lobby around campaigns, and elevate our stories to bring the material changes we wanted to see in our futures. The experience made a deep impression on me in terms of building community connection and power and harnessing that power to collectively challenge the threat of deportation that can be very destabilizing and destructive. Since then, I’ve had several public interests, but my loudest passion kept leading me back to removal defense. My journey came full circle when I returned to ALC as a staff attorney on the Immigrant Rights team.

How do your experiences and identity shape the work that you do today?

In part, it was a reckoning with how my positionality had been used in public discourse around the good versus bad immigrant. When we were organizing around #Not1More deportation in 2013, there were nearly two million people who were already deported and another million deported by the end of the Obama Administration. The majority were based on criminal convictions and the political rhetoric was that the Administration was deporting felons not families as if these were mutually exclusive. Meanwhile, the landscape had shifted for undocumented youth from being labeled illegal to DREAMers. These respectability narratives shaped how I’ve thought about lifting up our clients’ stories and what it means to challenge unjust systems. For me, it requires standing in solidarity and advocating for everyone impacted, especially those most marginalized, and learning from the voices and visions of directly impacted individuals and leaders.

What motivates you to continue working on immigrant rights?

Many of our clients have endured significant trauma from fleeing genocide to surviving poverty and local and state violence. There’s a deep-rooted motivation to challenge the carceral system that harms and funnels people into the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline. But I also think much of my sustainability in engaging in this difficult work comes from connection. On the daily, I have the opportunity to connect with formerly incarcerated individuals now detained in ICE custody. We’re entrusted with their legal cases but also with their stories of trauma, coming to terms with their worst mistakes, and desire to continue repairing harm. They have this steadfast hope and commitment for liberating themselves and their communities. For some, it’s making sure that a fellow detained person has access to free legal services and for others, it’s paving the way to transform the very systems that have harmed them. And I get to do this work with an amazing team who not only continues to push the bounds of what’s possible but also leads with great compassion. I’m very lucky to be in the fight with people who inspire me.

Can you recommend a piece of media to our supporters and community who might want to learn more about the issues you mentioned in this conversation?

If they haven’t checked it out already, there are pieces featuring our community leaders Ny Nourn and Chanthon Bun and their powerful stories. Also, Asian Prisoner Support Committee published an anthology called “Other: an Asian & Pacific Islander Prisoners’ Anthology” in 2007 and is releasing a second anthology of writings by API individuals who are formerly or currently incarcerated in prison or ICE detention. They’ve released a handful of writings as a preview that delve into stories of survival, determination, and more.

The last I’ll mention is a zine that highlights ICE out of CA coalition’s advocacy for the VISION Act and uplifts stories of immigrants and refugees who have been transferred to ICE by CDC. The VISION Act would end the prison-to-deportation pipeline and allow our community members to reunite with their loved ones and community.