Lucero Chávez Basilio

Lucero Chávez Basilio is the Director of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs for the county of San Diego. The focus of the Office is to build on existing refugee programs and establish a priority of devoting County resources to the immigrant population, regardless of immigration status. Prior to being hired to lead the inaugural office, Ms. Chavez Basilio was a Staff Attorney with the UC Immigrant Legal Services Center and based at UCI, working with students and their families on their immigration needs. Ms. Chávez Basilio was previously a senior staff attorney at Public Counsel in the Immigrant Rights Project, spending over five years representing unaccompanied children in immigration, asylum, family, delinquency, dependency, and probate proceedings, providing support to a robust pro bono program and and co-authoring a manual on seeking Special Immigrant Juvenile findings in state court. Prior to Public Counsel, Ms. Chávez Basilio was an Immigrants Rights attorney at the ACLU of Southern California where she focused on impact litigation around immigration enforcement.

Ms. Chávez Basilio received her J.D. from UC Berkeley Law School in 2010 and obtained a B.A. in American Literature & Culture and Chicana/o Studies from UCLA in 2007. She is the former President of the UC Student Association, worked on briefing for the Inter American Court with the Berkeley Law International Human Rights Clinic, and volunteered for over ten years with the statewide YMCA Model Legislature and Court Youth and Government program. Ms. Chávez Basilio is also a Rockwood Leadership Institute Fellow with the Fellowship for a New California and participated in the Shriver Racial Justice Institute. Ms. Chávez Basilio has also taught administrative law at Western State College of law, and Immigration Law & Policy at UCI. She is a proud native of Los Angeles from a working-class immigrant family who considers herself an OC transplant and an excellent multitasking wife and mommy.