Marielena Hincapié
Marielena Hincapié is executive director of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the nation’s leading organization dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of low-income immigrants in the U.S., and of the NILC Immigrant Justice Fund (IJF). Under her leadership, NILC and the IJF strategically combine litigation, policy, communications, narrative change, and movement-building to effect transformational change. Hincapié began her tenure at NILC in 2000 as a staff attorney leading the organization’s labor and employment rights program. During that time, she successfully litigated law reform and impact-litigation cases dealing with the intersection of immigration laws and employment/labor laws. She then served as NILC’s director of programs from 2004 to 2008, after which she became executive director.
Recognized as a seasoned strategist and bridge-builder, Hincapié has led national initiatives, such as the Immigrant Movement Visioning Process, and policy campaigns, such as the creation and successful implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Before joining NILC, Hincapié worked for the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco’s Employment Law Center, where she founded the Center’s Immigrant Workers’ Rights Project. She currently serves as board president of the Indivisible Project and previously served on the boards of Jobs with Justice and the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration.
Hincapié has been recognized with numerous awards, including Univision’s Corazón Award, a Stanton Fellowship from the Durfee Foundation, the Latina of Influence award from Hispanic Lifestyle, the National Public Service Award from Stanford Law School, and the Prime Mover Fellowship from the Hunt Alternatives Fund. Hincapié was appointed to serve as co-chair of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Immigration. She was also the Northeastern University School of Law Daynard Distinguished Visiting Fellow and Practitioner-in-Residence at the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.