Remembering Valerie Anne Zukin

• Citation: Vol. 4 No. 1
• Publication year: 2022

Remembering Valerie Anne Zukin

Friends and Colleagues of Valerie

Beloved colleague, mentor, and friend to many, Valerie Anne Zukin passed away peacefully at home on September 25, 2021, at the age of 41. She was surrounded by her family and her two giant dogs, Baxter and Sadie.

Valerie dedicated her life to pursuing justice for the most marginalized immigrants, especially those who were detained. She dedicated the latter part of her career to collaborative-building, mentorship, and training new immigration advocates. Valerie waged a fierce battle with metastatic breast cancer for 7.5 years, and despite illness and constant treatments, she both lived life to its fullest and remained a tenacious advocate, sharing her vast knowledge with others as she built and strengthened the immigration bar and fought for countless immigrants herself and through programs she built.

Valerie's impact on her community and the detained representation space in California and beyond was immense. Shortly after she passed, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adjourned its October 19, 2021, meeting out of respect to her memory.

Most recently, Valerie was a Special Projects Attorney at Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) from June 2020, where she led implementation and training for the first cohort of the California Immigrant Justice Fellowship. The fellowship is the first state-funded immigration law training program of its kind. Valerie inspired, grounded, and mentored the inaugural fellowship class, a cohort of ten diverse new immigration attorneys placed at nonprofit organizations in underserved regions of the state. Her impact will echo throughout the fellows' careers.

Valerie was also a pro bono attorney for her last client—"Don Juve"—through Immigrant Legal Defense (ILD). She continued to fight for his return to the United States even in her last days. Don Juve learned how to use Zoom for the first time in order to speak at her memorial service. He remembered Valerie as "the first person to see something in me and my case, and someone who always treated me like family."

Prior to ILRC, Valerie worked at the Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco beginning in 2017, as the founding Lead Attorney for the Northern California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (NCCIJ), and then as the first Legal Director of the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ). In these positions, Valerie convened, coordinated, and fostered significant...