Mie Lewis is an attorney at Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, a community legal services organization in San Francisco.

Lewis graduated from Oberlin College in 1997 and obtained her law degree from Stanford University in 2000.She began to see a great need in immigrant communities while still a college student. She once interviewed an undocumented woman who worked on an assembly line with other Spanish-speakers, piecing together plastic parts. Fearful that the Spanish-speakers were speaking ill of them, supervisors at the plant had issued an English Only policy. "To the workers," she points out, "this meant working in silence, deprived of the companionship and diversion. Yet this woman I interviewed, like many other undocumented immigrants, shied away from taking legal action for fear of being discovered and deported."

During law school, Lewis began assisting asylum seekers. Among those she interviewed was a Chinese woman who, with her elderly aunt, was being detained by what was at the time called the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Chinese traffickers had promised the women jobs in the United States, but instead the women were forced to work for pennies in Saipan. Although threatened by traffickers if they tried to escape, they approached U.S. authorities. Instead of responding appropriately to the women's report of worker exploitation, U.S. officials merely detained the women in the U.S. in oppressive conditions. The niece worried constantly about her aunt's health, which was deteriorating in the harsh detention environment.

In 2002, Lewis joined Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach as a New Voices fellow and staff attorney. A non-profit organization, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach advocates legally and politically for underserved Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The organization focuses primarily in the areas of immigrants' rights, elder abuse, family law, and youth law.

For her part, Lewis represents survivors of trafficking and works to educate policymakers and the general public about the brutal realities of trafficking in persons. A key aspect of Lewis' work is the representation of trafficking survivors who must cooperate with the federal law enforcement authorities as a condition of eligibility for immigration relief. The process of serving as a witness during the development and trial of a criminal case often retraumatizes trafficking survivors. Lewis has also developed partnerships and public education materials on the subject of trafficking, and has educated direct service providers about the dynamics of trafficking and the needs of trafficking survivors. In addition, Lewis has advised government officials and community advocates in Indonesia about victim-centered responses to trafficking.