Beatriz Ponce de León serves as Deputy Mayor of Immigrant, Migrant, and Refugee Rights (IMRR) for the City of Chicago. As the first person to hold this newly created position, Ms. Ponce de León works with the IMRR team to advocate for and to promote the advancement and integration of immigrant, migrants and refugees into the life and vitality of communities across Chicago.

Born and raised in Chicago, Beatriz Ponce de León is the eldest daughter of immigrants from Michoacán, México. Growing up in a working class neighborhood, she often saw her parents connect family members and neighbors to helpful people or resources. This inspired Beatriz to dedicate her career to working for the public good, expanding opportunities and resources that improve quality of life for individuals and strengthen our communities.

For over 30 years, Beatriz has advocated for and helped create policies and programs that promote equity and racial justice and address the marginalization of people of color and low-income communities. She has built multi-sector coalitions, led community and organizational planning processes, implemented communications campaigns, operationalized new initiatives and authored or contributed to numerous action plans and reports. These include “Language Education: Preparing Chicago’s Public School Students for a Global Community” as Director of the Bilingual Education and World Language Initiative for the Chicago Public Schools, “Strong Neighborhood High Schools for a Stronger Chicago” as executive director of the Generation All initiative at The Chicago Community Trust, “A Shared Future: The Economic Engagement of Greater Chicago and its Mexican Community” for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and several quality of life community plans for the LISC New Communities initiative.



For much of her career, Beatriz worked as a consultant in the public sector. This provided opportunities to develop expertise on a wide range of issues including immigrant rights and integration, education equity, bilingual education and language diversity, adolescent rights, health care access, voter engagement, and community development.

Most recently, Beatriz worked for the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) where she held several roles including Assistant Director of the Division of Family and Community Services and Chief of Staff for the Division of Mental Health.

Beatriz has always aimed to engage the people most impacted by a new program or policy in the decision-making and has an especially strong commitment to partnering with young people and their allies in creating the opportunities and resources youth need to thrive.

Beatriz holds a BA in Sociology with a concentration in race, class, and gender from Yale University and has served on numerous boards throughout her careers including as an elected Local School Council member.