Marielena Hincapié

Marielena Hincapié serves as the executive director of the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the NILC Immigrant Justice Fund. With more than two decades of experience in the immigrants’ rights movement, Hincapié has litigated key cases in defense of low-income immigrants including the Contreras v Corinithian Vigor Insurance Brokerage that established the legal precedent making it illegal for employers to retaliate against undocumented workers who exercise their workplace rights and other key cases at the intersection of immigration and labor law, and led national policy campaigns such as the creation and successful implementation of DACA. As an immigrant from Colombia, Hincapié brings a bilingual and bicultural perspective to her work in the social justice movement and frequently speaks with the media, including recent interviews with the New York Times, Washington Post, Univisión, Telemundo, CNN, MSNBC, and many other outlets.