Ray Anthony Ybarra Maldonado

RAY A. YBARRA MALDONADO is a human rights activist, author, filmmaker, and public speaker. Ybarra Maldonado has written about and given numerous talks on vigilantism, the militarization of the border and the growing immigrant’s rights movement at numerous universities including Stanford, Harvard, University of California at Berkeley, and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and to community groups from Washington to Iowa. In addition to receiving awards for his commitment to social justice, Ybarra Maldonado has testified in front of local and state bodies as well as having his work quoted at the United Nations. Ybarra Maldonado is frequently quoted in both the national and international media and his work has been profiled in the Intelligence Report, Stanford Lawyer, and in a documentary that premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, entitled “Crossing Arizona.” Ybarra Maldonado spent a year volunteering at a migrant center in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico and in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico assisting with cleaning, preparing food, and conducting human rights discussions amongst the migrants. “Human beings like all other animals should not be restrained by prisons, cages, or borders.”
Ybarra Maldonado was awarded an athletic scholarship to play baseball at Cochise Community College in Douglas, AZ and later graduated Summa Cum Laude from Arizona State University in 2002 with a degree in Religious Studies and from Stanford Law School in 2007. He has previously worked for United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and was a proud public defender in Cochise County and with the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Tucson, AZ. He currently teaches Evidence at ASU Law School while leading YMA Law Group in the areas of Criminal Defense, Immigration, and Personal Injury.