Esmeralda López

Esmeralda López is the California state director at UnidosUS. In this role, she leads, manages and executes efforts to advance UnidosUS’s state and state-federal policy agenda, while maintaining strong relationships with Affiliates and other key stakeholders. 

Before joining UnidosUS, Esmeralda spent nine years in Washington, D.C. serving as the legal and policy director at Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum working to advance workers’ rights, combat forced labor and ensure corporate accountability. She also worked to advance the rights of refugees and migrants at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, where she led numerous coalitions, spoke before Congress and the United Nations and presented cases before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. Prior to that, she spent three years in California working in the office of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. She also served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and worked at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. Esmeralda has published numerous reports, including an article in the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics.  

Esmeralda earned her Juris Doctor at Santa Clara University School of Law and bachelor’s from California State University at Sacramento. While at Santa Clara, she clerked for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and studied at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. She is a native Spanish speaker and the daughter of Mexican immigrants.