
Pedro Rios
Pedro oversees a program that documents abuses by law enforcement agencies, collaborates with community organizations, advocates for policy change and works with migrant communities. He is a steering committee member for the Southern Border Communities Coalition and is ex officio representative for the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium's Advisory Committee. He holds a master's degree in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University. Pedro Rios is a human rights advocate employed since 2003 by the American Friends Service Committee where he directs its U.S./Mexico Border Program. A native San Diegan, Pedro has worked on immigrant rights and border issues for over 25 years.
All Stories

Like any person elected to public office, San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez is responsible for serving in the interest of the public good. That is the social contract to...

Patterns of racial profiling persist in Chula Vista with the use of automated license plate recognition
Rios is director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program. He lives in Chula Vista.In March, dozens of ominous cameras mounted on streetlight poles suddenly appeared throughout Chula Vista’s...

Negative narratives about the border are often false. We must embrace lived experience.
Rios is director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program. He lives in Chula Vista.For border communities, it is common for opportunistic influencers to reduce our dynamic border...

America’s flouting of asylum laws, lack of migrant protections creates needless suffering
Rios is director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program. He lives in Chula Vista.The frenzy of attention over the ending of Title 42, the archaic public health...

A baby was born beside a trash can at a Chula Vista Border Patrol station. It’s inhumane.
Rios is director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program. He lives in Chula Vista.On this Mother’s Day, Customs and Border Protection should develop a clear policy to...

The immigrants who died in a Black’s Beach boat accident were in search of a better life
Rios is director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.Under difficult conditions of fog, mist and strong rip currents, two panga boats, carrying...

Chula Vista is no longer a Certified Welcoming Place for immigrants and refugees. Will it reverse that?
Rios is program director of the American Friends Service Committee and lives in Chula Vista.Chula Vista was the first city in the state of California to be certified a “Welcoming...

A tender memory of making tamales and listening to oldies allays my Christmas grief
Rios is director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista. I have a tender memory of you cleaning the corn husks. The palm...

Revisiting the 2010 killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas may lead to big changes
Rios is director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.In a landmark hearing in November in front of seven of an international...

The Border Patrol emblem promotes razor-sharp wires made for a battlefield. Why is it allowed?
Rios is director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.The Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector has a new challenge coin that features concertina wire...

In the United States, disdain for migrants is as American as baseball and apple pie
Rios is director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.As people all over the United States celebrate Independence Day with families and friends...

The Biden istration must recommit to restoring asylum before more lives are lost
Rios is director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.Last year on June 7, on an official visit to Guatemala to discuss ways of...

Border walls lead to injuries and death. It’s a sinister way to enforce immigration laws.
Rios is director, U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.In June 2018, I attended a meeting between local San Diego immigration advocates and then-Border Patrol...

The U.S. Border Patrol is hiding information. Here’s what it doesn’t want you to know and why.
Rios is director, U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.At least since 1987, the United States Border Patrol has operated unsanctioned cover-up units known as Critical...

After Jan. 6 attack, our nation is on a dangerous trajectory
Rios is director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., by ers...

There are so many people to be thankful for this Thanksgiving
Rios is director of the American Friends Service Committee and a longtime immigrant rights activist who lives in Chula Vista.The season when we are supposed to be reflective and thankful...

Border Patrol’s ‘prevention through deterrence’ strategy is deadly by design
Rios is a human rights advocate with the American Friends Service Committee and directs its U.S./Mexico Border Program. He lives in Chula Vista.During the last weekend of August, a team...

The pandemic has exposed class disparities, mostly for families without immigration status
Rios is a human rights advocate and director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S./Mexico Border Program. He has worked on immigrant rights and border issues for over 25 years...

Why the symbolism of the American flag does not align with my families values
Rios is director of the American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.When my son was in preschool, my wife and I instructed him that he did not have...

For Mother’s Day, I’m reflecting on the stories of migrant mothers who risk everything for their children
Rios is director, U.S.-Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee. He lives in Chula Vista.Last month, I spoke with a mother of two teenage boys at the Chaparral migrant encampment in...

Chula Vista must stop its automated license plate reader program. It’s undermining civil liberties.
The City of Chula Vista has been operating a powerful surveillance tool mounted on four of its vehicles, with little to no scrutiny or transparency, and everyone should be troubled...

2020 was extraordinarily difficult – and San Diego rose to the challenge
This has been an extraordinarily difficult year. Over 325,000 people have died from a pandemic in the United States since February. The economic fallout is exasperating for millions who have...

San Diego’s leaders need to realize the power of the people is stronger than the people in power
The 2020 election season will not likely end on Nov. 3, since the prospect of a contested presidential election is a strong possibility with neither side conceding and legal and...

My first impressions at the Erez Crossing after a lifetime crossing the U.S.-Mexico border
In September 2015 I ed colleagues from around the country on a delegation to the occupied Palestinian territories to meet with farmers, business people, politicians and activists. The intention for...

Desecration of Kumeyaay lands will continue unless Congress acts with urgency
In southeastern San Diego County between Campo and Boulevard, the Kumeyaay Bands are pressing the Border Patrol and the Army Corps of Engineers to grant them access to their ancestral...

Por que la estatua de Cristobal Colon en Chula Vista no debe volver
La ciudad de Chula Vista recientemente retiró una estatua de bronce de 2.5 metros del explorador italiano Cristóbal Colón, un hombre que brutalmente esclavizó y mató a los pueblos indígenas...

Why the Christopher Columbus statue in Chula Vista must go
The city of Chula Vista recently removed an 8-foot bronze statue of the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, a man that brutally enslaved and killed Indigenous people for profit. For almost...

While ICE and its profiteers enable a human rights disaster, elected officials must take action
On May 6, Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia, a 57-year-old man died at a San Diego hospital while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) because of complications associated...