Susan Alva is Chief of Staff and Co-Founder at Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). Susan was born in New York City to Mexican and Dominican immigrant parents. Beginning her social justice activism while a Los Angeles high school student in the 1960's, she went on to work for the CA Rural Legal Assistance in the San Joaquin Valley before joining the United Farm Workers Union during the height of their state-wide organizing campaign following passage of the groundbreaking Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975. While in law school, Susan worked for the San Diego Legal Aid Society's Immigration Project, focusing on deportation defense and border work. Since then, she has worked for several immigrant rights and community-based organizations, including the L.A. Center for Law and Justice, where she played a key role in the implementation of the 1986 amnesty law and the founding of CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. Susan worked on several high-profile cases, including the banning of the short-handled hoe in CA's agricultural fields and the El Monte Thai garment slavery case. The case would also lead to the passage of California laws to reform the garment industry and end sweatshop abuses through independent monitoring and a code of conduct and then eventually to the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) passed by the United States Congress (later known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA). 

She has testified before local, state and national government bodies throughout the US and abroad, including Mexico, Cuba, South Africa and the EU, and is a past recipient of awards from the National Lawyers Guild, the South Asian Network, the CA legislature, the US Dept of Labor and the Latina Lawyers Bar Association, among others.  She has been an adjunct professor at Occidental College, a delegate in numerous international migrant rights campaigns, and led the successful campaign to create L.A.’s first Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs in 2004.  Susan is a long-time member and past Board Chair of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild and the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.