Shiu-Ming Cheer

Shiu-Ming Cheer is an immigration attorney, focuses on challenging immigration enforcement and promoting access to legal status. Her work includes litigation, immigration reform advocacy, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals implementation. Previously, she held the positions of Soros Justice Fellow and managing attorney at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network’s Los Angeles Detention Project and children’s attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. In those roles, she represented detained immigrants facing deportation. She was also the civil rights coordinator at South Asian Network and a public benefits attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County. She graduated from the UCLA School of Law Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. She has a long history of involvement in social justice organizing projects, campaigns, and coalitions.

Shiu-Ming Cheer is a member of Los Angeles Democratic Socialists of America and the former Coordinator of the chapter’s Immigration Justice Committee.

Education

• Studied at UCLA School of Law
• Studied at UC Berkeley
• Went to Arcadia High School

Career/activism

• Works at National Immigration Law Center
• Worked at Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project
• Worked at Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance
• Worked at Neighborhood Legal Services
• Worked at South Asian Network

Statement on Anti Blackness in the DSA

Statement on Anti Blackness in the DSA was released in February 2021:

We as the AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus stand in solidarity with the Black woman in DSA North Texas who was wrongfully suspended by DSA North Texas Co-chairs. This action by the DSA North Texas Co-chairs is racist and in particular anti-Black. This is not an isolated incident of racism but represents a pattern of anti-black and white supremacist actions within DSA which must be acknowledged, held accountable and systematically rooted out. There is a pattern of anti-black behavior that stems from the founding of DSA North Texas that has led to each generation of Co-chairs either perpetuating or being complicit in anti-black racism.

Signatories included Shiu-Ming Cheer Los Angeles Democratic Socialists of America .

DSA

Shiu-Ming Cheer been an active member of DSA-LA since 2019.

In 2021 I was the Immigration Justice Committee Co-Chair and in 2022 I co-chaired the Working Group to elect Eunisses Hernandez to LA City Council. In those roles, I convened regular meetings to organize political education events and rallies around immigrant justice as well as bi-weekly canvasses and other activities in support of Eunisses’ campaign. Since her election to City Council, I have continued to represent DSA-LA in interactions with her office.

In terms of my background, I am a Chinese American immigrant who grew up in the San Gabriel Valley. I have 20+ years of experience in the immigrant justice sector, ranging from volunteer-run grassroots organizing projects to policy, litigation, direct services, and coalition building work. Most of my time has been directed at challenging ICE’s oppressive arrest, detention and deportation practices, with the goal of abolishing ICE and other carceral systems altogether.

NILC comrades

National Immigration Law Center May 1 2015.

NILCers are ready for the May Day rally in downtown Los Angeles!

— with Claudia Lara, Ignacia Rodriguez Kmec, Shiu-Ming Cheer, Alvaro M. Huerta, Nora Adriana Preciado

Revolutionary on the Daily

Revolutionary on the Daily: Visions for New Societies, Revolutionaries Organizing Ourselves Friday, June 25 2012, Detroit.

Most of us are struggling by day for small victories to help our people organize and survive, and dreaming by night about a better world. This workshop is a space to gather with other non-sectarian revolutionaries to explore our visions in creative ways. Through play and discussion this session will provide a space to reflect on the challenges facing left organizers who are committed to bringing about revolutionary transformation. Let's think deeply through the following questions together: What is our revolutionary vision for a new society (as distinct from a reformist vision)? What is the role of revolutionary orgs/collectives/individuals/political communities to get us to that new society? How does being a revolutionary affect or inform our daily practice? We’ll have a gameshow featuring amazing organizers from around the country, play a spectrum game so participants can pitch in their thoughts, build virtual neighborhoods from cardboard and paint that weave together our visions of a new society, and have small and large group discussions.

Featuring: Lenina Nadal from the New York Study Group, Joanna Misnik from Solidarity, Tony Zaragoza from League of Revolutionaries for a New America, Eric Odell from Freedom Road Socialist Organization/OSCL, Shiu-Ming Cheer and Luz Elena Henao from LA COiL, and speakers from Labor Community Strategy Center, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Bring the Ruckus.