Claudia Leon

Claudia Leon joined Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project in December 2008. She is now the Program Manager for the Legal Orientation Program (LOP) in Desert View Annex and Adelanto ICE Processing Center. She started as a paralegal working in a pilot program that provided orientations to individuals detained in Los Angeles Counties Jails. She received her DOJ Full Accreditation in 2012. Working with individuals in detention created a passion in learning about the intersection in criminal law and immigration law. She truly believes in the importance of the Community Education Programs; with only one individual orientation you can change the life of one human being and their family. She specifically remembers one client that in his first interview wanted to accept the deportation, she explained to him that he qualifies for bond and cancellation of removal (42B). He changed his mind and he decided to fight his case. LOP found a Pro Bono attorney from Esperanza and he won the case. Now he is a legal permanent resident of the US with his children.
Claudia is from Bogota, Colombia and immigrated to the U.S. in 2007. Issues relating to injustice, inequity and elitism are what drove her undergraduate studies and motivated her to study law. She earned her bachelor’s degree in law in 1999 from the “Universidad de la Sabana” in Colombia. In her honor thesis, she researched about the Application of International Humanitarian Law: Difficulties Outlined by Different Readings of the “Civil Population” Category by Violent Participants in the Colombian Armed Conflict”.
In 2005, she was granted the honor to participate in an Internship with an Andean Community by the Ministry of Communications and the President of the Republic of Colombia. Her research paper was: “State Jurisdiction Analysis: The Andean Community and Government Organs in Decision making.”