This advanced webinar will discuss FOIA requests in immigration cases and provide tips for filing FOIA requests with the Department of Homeland Security, including USCIS, OBIM, ICE, and CBP. We will also cover FOIA strategies for specific scenarios, including concerns for individuals in removal proceedings and appeal and litigation options.
Presenters
Peggy Gleason, Senior Staff Attorney - ILRC
Peggy Gleason, who has dedicated her career to immigrant rights, joined ILRC in 2019 as a senior staff attorney in Washington, D.C.
She worked most recently in the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security, dealing with civil rights complaints concerning U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Earlier, she worked on family and humanitarian immigration policy and legal issues for the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman and on legal access issues for the Department of Justice Executive Office of Immigration Review.
Before her time with the federal government, she was a senior attorney for Catholic Legal Immigration Network’s training and technical support section for 23 years, providing technical assistance and training to CLINIC’s affiliated programs and other nonprofits nationwide. She also represented immigrant clients of Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services for the Archdiocese of Washington. She began fulltime practice of immigration law while working for the Colorado Rural Legal Services Farmworker Program.
She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a B.A. in Ibero-American Studies and earned her J.D. at Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Colorado Bar.
Peggy is a frequent speaker on immigration law topics and contributor to publications. She speaks Spanish.
Sharon Hing, Legal Program Collaboration Manager - ILRC
Sharon manages initiatives to maximize the collective and collaborative work of the ILRC’s attorneys. Sharon also contributes to the ILRC’s legal technical assistance resources, including writing and updating practice advisories and manuals. Prior to this position, Sharon was the special projects director for the New Americans Campaign, Ready Bay Area, and the Oakland Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Collaborative, where she managed several of the ILRC’s regranting programs.
Before joining the ILRC, Sharon was a litigation associate at Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP. Sharon clerked for the Honorable Harry Pregerson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She previously worked for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy.
Sharon earned her law degree from the University of California Los Angeles School of Law, with a specialization in critical race studies and concentration in the Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. While in law school, she worked with Legal Services of Northern California, Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, and ACLU of Northern California. She also served as editor-in-chief of the Asian Pacific American Law Journal and co-chair of the El Centro Legal Reentry Legal Clinic. Sharon received her undergraduate degrees in fine art, international development studies, and history cum laude from the University of California Los Angeles, where she was a regents scholar. She is conversant in Cantonese and is a member of the State Bar of California.
Emily Creighton, Legal Director, Transparency - American Immigration Council
Emily Creighton is the Legal Director, Transparency at the American Immigration Council. She oversees the development of the Council's transparency-related litigation, amicus briefs, practice advisories and advocacy, including maintaining an active docket of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) cases. She seeks to uncover agency records that will advance litigation, advocacy and research efforts to combat abuses at the border and unlawful enforcement tactics, promote fair and just removal processes, and shed light on unlawful adjudications of immigration benefits. She also seeks to strengthen collaboration among organizations involved in open government work in the immigration space. Prior to her new role at the Council, she served as the Senior Advisor on Humanitarian Programs at the CIS Ombudsman's Office from 2016 to 2017. Previous to that, she was a Senior Staff Attorney with the Council. As a staff attorney, she engaged in impact litigation, representing amicus curiae in immigration cases in federal court and before the Board of Immigration Appeals, and authored numerous practice advisories.