We're looking forward to seeing you tonight!
If you already have your ticket and are joining us tonight at the 2023 Burton Awards, the details are below. If not, we look forward to seeing you in 2024. You may still make a donation in support of the ILRC at https://www.ilrc.org/donate-now
Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Reception – 5:30p until 7:00p, Dinner & Awards Program – 7:00p until 9:00p
Please review our Burton 2023 COVID-19 safety protocols here.
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center is delighted to announce our 2023 Phillip Burton Immigration & Civil Rights Awards celebration. The ILRC is looking forward to welcoming you again to the Hotel Nikko in downtown San Francisco on Thursday, May 18 to celebrate the achievements in the immigration law and immigrant rights fields and to laud the impact of our 2023 Phillip Burton Immigration & Civil Rights honorees.
This year, the ILRC is proud to honor the following recipients:
We are honoring Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) for its work to uplift the needs and voices of Black immigrants as they navigate the immigration process and for the strong partnership between our organizations.
Founded in April 2006, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) believes that a thriving multiracial democracy requires racial, social and economic justice for all. African Americans and black immigrants are stronger together and we can win by becoming leaders in the fight against structural racism and systemic discrimination. BAJI was formed to bring Black voices together to advocate for equality and justice in our laws and our communities.
BAJI educates and engages African American and black immigrant communities to organize and advocate for racial, social and economic justice. Local BAJI Organizing Committees in New York, Georgia, California and Arizona build coalitions and initiate campaigns among communities to push for racial justice. At the local and regional level, BAJI provides training and technical assistance to partner organizations to develop leadership skills, works with faith communities to harness their prophetic voice, and initiates vibrant dialogues with African Americans and black immigrants to discover more about race, our diverse identities, racism, migration and globalization. BAJI’s flagship project is the Black Immigration Network (BIN), a national alliance that brings together black-led organizations and programs to advance just immigration policies and promote cultural shifts our communities need. The BIN kinship provides a safe, communal space for diverse black communities to connect, engage and advocate for equality and justice for all.
We are honoring Professor López for his long-standing service and work in the field of Rebellious Lawyering and legal clinical education for lawyers working with immigrants.
Over the years, López’ practice, his clinical teaching, and his writing have focused on whatever challenges subordinated communities face. Those challenges include the routinely brutal criminal justice and immigration systems, the too-often vile health care and educational institutions, the predatory financial, housing, labor, and consumer markets, the absence of favorable economic development and the presence of deadly environmental racism, the everyday failures to provide public benefits and to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the cold-blooded dismissal of the prevalence of domestic violence and sexual harassment, the rejection and weakening of self-determination, and so much more.
In all his work, López has called attention to how struggles of every sort (including dealing with ostensibly mundane hassles) express the largely ignored experiences of communities targeted as genetically and culturally sub-human by the bi-partisan mainstream as much as by the far right. And he has emphasized how we can and should most ambitiously work with one another – how we can and should practice rebelliously -- in addressing often messy, entangled problems. How we work with one another is at the heart of how we co-exist in the achievable utopias radicals seek.
We are honoring Congresswoman Judy Chu for her public service and work on behalf of immigrants and their families in California and across the country.
Judy Chu was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in July 2009. She represents the 28th Congressional District, which includes Pasadena and the west San Gabriel Valley of southern California.
Congresswoman Chu currently serves on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over legislation pertaining to taxes, revenues, Social Security, and Medicare. In that Committee, Congresswoman Chu is a member of the Subcommittees on Health, giving her oversight over healthcare reform and crucial safety net programs, Worker and Family Support, and Oversight.
She also serves on the House Small Business Committee, which has oversight of the Small Business Administration, as well as the House Budget Committee.
Chu was first elected to the Board of Education for Garvey School District in 1985. From there, she was elected to the Monterey Park City Council, where she served as Mayor three times. She then was elected to the State Assembly and then California’s elected tax board, known as the State Board of Equalization. In 2009, she became the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress in history.
