Our Staff

Elizabeth Lopez, Esq. is the Founder and Executive Director of the Southern California Immigration Project (SCIP). Established in 2015, SCIP is a nonprofit organization that represents predominately African asylum seekers from the detention facilities in Imperial and San Diego counties in Southern California.

Elizabeth has nearly thirty years experience as an attorney and lobbyist. She spent over a decade running her own firm in Orange County representing plaintiffs in employment law cases before spending several years lobbying for social justice issues in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. While in D.C., she worked on the immigration bill and became aware of the tremendous need for immigration attorneys. This led her to return to Southern California where she spent seven years as an immigration attorney on the U.S./Mexico border with the nonprofit Casa Cornelia Law Center (CCLC) in San Diego. During her tenure at CCLC she represented hundreds of asylum seekers from over eighty countries throughout Africa and beyond.

In addition to running SCIP, Elizabeth serves on the board of directors of Survivors of Torture International (SOTI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to caring for survivors of politically motivated torture and their families who live in San Diego County.