PERSON: Karen Tumlin

National Immigration Law Center

Legal Director

Karen Tumlin focuses on promoting the rights of low-income immigrants through litigation and related advocacy. She has successfully litigated numerous cases of national importance, including the constitutional challenge to Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant SB 1070 law, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on immigrants’ rights issues. Her primary responsibilities are leading NILC’s legal department and overseeing NILC’s impact litigation. Before joining NILC as a Skadden Fellow in 2005, Karen clerked for Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to law school, she worked as a research associate at the Urban Institute, where she coauthored studies on immigration, welfare, and language access issues. She also spent a year as a Luce Scholar in Bangkok, Thailand, where she conducted a study on child trafficking in the region for the U.N. International Labor Organization. Karen holds a juris doctor degree and a master of public policy from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall).

— nilc.org