Rebeca Ontiveros-Chavez

Rebeca is a Managing Attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center’s (MIRC) Washtenaw County office. She serves unaccompanied children who entered the United States and are detained in federal custody in facilities contracted by the Office of Refugee Resettlement and are placed in removal/deportation proceedings. She has also represented individuals in the metro Detroit area on various immigration matters. In 2019, she was appointed by the Michigan Supreme Court to the Foreign Language Board of Review as the Limited English Proficiency Populations Advocate. Rebeca has played an integral role in creating the Immigrant Justice Lab, an interdisciplinary team-based approach that brings students together from different disciplines at the University of Michigan to assist in asylum cases. She also advocates for racial equity as a member of the Michigan Advocacy Program’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is committed to ensuring that all youth have access to higher education regardless of immigration status and helps lead the Michigan Coalition for Undocumented Student Success.As a law student, she was the Executive Articles Editor of the Michigan Journal of Race & Law and Co-President of the Latino Law Students Association. She was also a Student-Attorney for the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic and the Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic. Prior to law school, Rebeca worked for United States Senator Michael Bennet and was the Communications Director for the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association in Washington, D.C. Rebeca is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Metropolitan State University of Denver.