Karen Cassandra Tumlin

Ms. Tumlin focuses on promoting the rights of low-income immigrants through litigation and administrative advocacy. Currently she is litigating cases challenging state anti-immigrant ordinances and federal immigration detention policies. Her practice also includes litigation on due process, detention, and employment issues. Before joining NILC as a Skadden Fellow in 2005, Ms. Tumlin clerked for Judge 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. Ms. Tumlin holds a Juris Doctor degree and a master of public policy from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall).