He Fought Injustice From a Young Age and Dedicated 20 Years to Immigrant Rights

Pedro Rios was a student at the University of San Diego in the 1990s when Californians voted in favor of Proposition 187 , a ballot measure denying access to public services, including public education and health care, to anyone “suspected” of being undocumented. The bill also instructed people in public service positions (teachers, medical professionals) to report anyone “suspected” of being undocumented.

“At the time, I was concerned about the implications this would have on friends, family, or people generally. I started looking into what organizations were doing and how to get involved. It was at that moment that I became involved in a student group called M.E.Ch.A.,” he says of Movimiento Estudiantil de Chicanos/Chicanas de Aztlan, a student-based Chicano organization formed in the late 1960s. Joining the organization allowed him to participate in the work against the legislation, which he says represented the power of the anti-immigration movement at the time (although the proposition passed in a vote of nearly 59% to 41% , it was later ruled unconstitutional in the court system). “So, my interest in immigrant rights issues became a personal interest and also a political interest, and it was at that moment that I decided that I would work on immigrant rights issues.”

Due to his decades of work and commitment in organizing educational workshops, analyzing border-related legislation, advocating on immigration cases, and coordinating support and resources for immigrants, he’s been recognized as one of two recipients of this year’s Nancy Jamison Fund for Social Justice Award . Jamison was president and CEO of Catalyst of San Diego and Imperial Counties (formerly known as San Diego Grantmakers), a collective of organizations, businesses, and individuals connected with groups and programs focused on social change; she died in 2021. Rios, along with fellow recipient Ramah Awad, executive director of Majdal Arab Community Center of San Diego , will each receive an unrestricted $50,000 grant to advance their work.

Rios is the director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program at the American Friends Service Committee , working on advocacy, human rights, documenting civil rights abuses, and allying with other organizations for more than 20 years. He took some time to talk about his work, particularly with the more recent protests and detainments around immigration, and the history of advocacy he carries with him. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity. )

Q: Considering your work with migrant communities and around immigration policy, I just want to take a moment to check in with you on how you’re doing right now as you deal with the onslaught of detainments, raids and protests.

A: Yeah, it’s been incredibly busy and taxing, both on the amount of work that I have and that my colleagues have, and the amount of emotional expense, I would say, also takes a toll. My phone sometimes doesn’t stop beeping or ringing because of people that want to check in about whether something that they’ve observed or heard from somewhere is an immigration enforcement operation, or there’s someone that’s reaching out because they were a victim of an ICE raid and they want to know about legal resources that might be available to them.

Just this morning, for instance, there were two requests to document incidents where there might have been immigration raids — one in North Park and one in Oceanside. Two other people called about wanting to volunteer for immigration court support. So, it’s nonstop, in that sense, in terms of the amount of activity that is taking place and the volume. Our work has just increased tremendously.

Q: Where did your interest in, and commitment to, this kind of work begin? What first created that spark in you to pursue making the world more equitable and just?

A: I would say that I had good role models in my parents. Even though the type of work did differ in terms of how they did their altruistic work — they were much more connected to the Catholic church and their work tended to revolve more around charity, but that’s not to minimize the importance of the work that they did at any level — they provided an example of when there is an injustice, then one has a responsibility to speak out. When someone is being harmed, and if one has the ability to say something, then one must take action. That’s what my parents cemented in me as a child.

Q: Your bio says that you are “a steering committee member and board member of several organizations that advocate for humane and dignified policies for the Southern Border.” In thinking about the policies and responses currently happening at U.S. borders right now, what would humane and dignified border policies ideally look like, from your point of view?

A: There would have to be a commitment from policymakers to begin a departure from the policies that seek to further militarize border communities and to seek to obliterate basic protections for people that are seeking safety from harm. What I mean by that is that a lot of people, when they talk about immigration reform, they point to President Reagan and the amnesty bill that he signed ( the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 , penalizing employers who knowingly hired undocumented immigrants and offering permanent residence to qualified applicants, leading to “an estimated 3 million individuals-mostly of Hispanic descent-gained legal status through IRCA”) and that there hasn’t been any sort of immigration reform since then. I beg to differ because I would say that there has been reform, but it’s been toward militarizing communities. It’s been toward slowly reversing the protections that migrants have, the ability for state agencies to not have to abide by constitutional protections of people with whom they are in contact. For me, to begin having dignified policies around border and immigration, there would have to be a commitment from state actors that human rights need to be a priority in how policies are developed. There has to be a responsibility to take action when humanitarian needs are not being met, and protection of constitutional rights and civil liberties need to be at the front end of any policy making that Congress, for instance, would be considering around immigration reform.

Q: What is it about this kind of work-documenting human rights violations, advocating for policy change-that has continued to resonate with you over the years?

A: I believe that immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers are in a much more vulnerable relationship with the state. When the state, elected officials, or politicians start a campaign to target them for political purposes or for political expediency, it’s a cowardly thing to do, especially when they know that many people who are in that horrible state do not necessarily have the mechanisms or the resources to push back in a way that would ensure that their rights and their dignity are not being violated at the same time.

On a much more personal level, my parents migrated to the United States. My paternal grandparents were born in Los Angeles, but during the 1930s, during the ( Mexican repatriation in which government agencies and private entities “undertook an aggressive program to forcibly remove persons of Mexican ancestry from the United States,” including American citizens and legal residents), even though they were U.S. citizens, they were deported to Mexico. It’s this lived experience, both what I was seeing on a contemporary level, and continue to see, but also on a historic and a personal level, based on what happened to my family, I felt a commitment and a responsibility to use the resources that I’ve had, the skills that I’ve learned over the course of time, to work in the immigrant rights arena in whatever capacity I was able to. Again, I’ve been extremely fortunate that my professional career has been in that field and I’m able to meld together my passion for working around immigrant rights and human rights, and being able to do it with organizations that I believe have a really good set of principles about why they do the work that they do.

Q: Congratulations on receiving a 2025 Nancy Jamison Fund for Social Justice Award. What does it mean to you to be recognized for your work in this way?

A: It means a lot. On the one hand, I always want to acknowledge that the work I do is never done as an individual. There are a lot of processes of consultation work that I do with my colleagues with whom I work at the San Diego program, together with all the other people in other organizations where we do this work jointly and in coalition. It’s important to acknowledge that it’s never the work of a single individual. On the other hand, though, I do feel honored and privileged and humbled that I would be recognized for what I think has become a legacy of doing this work since the mid-’90s; never for the purpose of gaining recognition, but because there is real harm that people are experiencing when bad policies are put in place. My hope is that I can continue doing this work for as long as I’m able to, knowing that I’m closer now to retirement than what I might have been 20 years ago, but still (doing this work) with enough passion and within this political context, even more committed to moving forward with work that honors and values human life, especially those that are in extremely vulnerable circumstances because they lack a specific immigration status.

Q: What are your plans for the $50,000?

A: Well, I do have some plans for them. I intend to use part of it for a sabbatical, probably next year. I am due a sabbatical, and it’s always easier to take time off when one can have some bit of funding to pay for a trip somewhere. I also do a lot of photography. A lot of my photos are showcased in different places. In fact, the U-T had an article (on June 8) where they used one of my photos . So, I need to upgrade my camera equipment.

Q: What’s been challenging about your work in the realm of social justice?

A: What’s extremely challenging, for me, is to see that few changes have occurred that are positive. When I think of Martin Luther King’s quote about (“the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,”) I don’t always see that arc moving in that direction, especially in our current context. It seems that we are, as a society and even globally, that the movement is toward harsher, regressive policies that will exacerbate human suffering, and that is very frustrating for me.

Q: What’s been rewarding about it?

A: I really find it rewarding to work with people and develop relationships with people who also become my teachers. They instruct me about life, they teach me about being resilient and about being able to persevere, in spite of so many challenges. That also then teaches me about privilege and the privilege I have as a person with U.S. citizenship status. It’s rewarding, almost on a selfish level, but also on a more human level, that in spite of these artificial designations about who belongs and who doesn’t belong and who merits belonging to a nation state, that, ultimately, it’s human-to-human relationships that we develop that matter most about why we should take stances that defend our neighbors, that uphold the basic rights of those that are making impossible journeys to save their lives and save the lives of their children. It’s rewarding for me to understand and comprehend that people’s willingness to survive is greater than the destruction that other people that are not well-intentioned seek to do, especially when there is a power imbalance involved.

Q: What has this work taught you about yourself?

A: I guess I can say that my work has taught me how to be a much more patient person, and the importance of being compassionate toward people who might hold opposing viewpoints. I guess that’s what it’s about, the ability to be compassionate when it’s needed.

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