Tsion Gurmu

Tsion Gurmu is an Ethiopian-American attorney, writer, consultant, and researcher on migration, with special focus on gender and sexuality. Tsion is the Legal Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), the first national immigrant rights organization formed in the US to bring Black voices together to advocate for social and economic justice for Black immigrants. Tsion is also the Founder and Director of the Queer Black immigrant project (QBip), a Black radical lawyering initiative which provides comprehensive legal representation to LGBTQIA+ Black immigrants while creating a safe space for clients to regain control over their voices through a storytelling project. QBip’s mission is to create a systemic response to meet the legal and social needs of LGBTQIA+ Black immigrants while elevating narratives that illuminate the global injustices of state-sponsored homophobia and anti-Black racism. Tsion has received recognition for her work at the intersection of international law, immigration, and racial justice by Preet Bharara and CAFÉ 100, change-makers taking action to address some of the most pressing problems in America and around the world. She was also selected as a 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy honoree, OkayAfrica’s 2019 Top 100 Women honoree, and NYU School of Law’s 2019 OUTLaw Alumna of the Year.

Tsion holds a B.A. in Political Science and History, with a minor in Human Rights from the University of Chicago. She also holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law. In law school, she focused on international human rights law and immigration law. She served as a legal advocate in the Advanced Immigrant Rights Clinic, a leading institution in both local and national struggles for immigrant rights that engages in direct legal representation of immigrants and community organizations. In this position she represented individuals in removal proceedings, detention litigation, and civil suits; she also represented community organizations in legislative campaigns to pass the New York DREAM Act. Tsion also managed a capacity-building project for a children’s rights organization in Sierra Leone, Defence for Children International-Sierra Leone, in coordination with New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. During her time in Ethiopia, Tsion worked with the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia assisting women in the struggle to secure full protection of their rights through training and advocacy workshops as well as small-scale research projects aimed at bringing about positive and progressive legal changes for Ethiopian women. Before moving to New York City, Tsion worked as an educator in Miami, FL with Teach for America.