Luis CdeBaca

Luis C. deBaca is an American lawyer who has served as United States Ambassador in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons since 2009. He was formerly an attorney for the United States Department of Justice, where he was one of the United States' most highly decorated federal prosecutors.

deBaca was raised on a cattle ranch in Iowa. His family has been in what is now the United States since the 1500s, dating back to the explorations of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca in 1527; in the ensuing years, his family has played a prominent role in New Mexico politics and culture, including the first Latino Governor Ezequiel Cabeza De Baca, Lieutenant Governor Luis CdeBaca, and the pioneer of education and Chicana literature, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca. He graduated from Iowa State University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1990 before attending the University of Michigan Law School where he completed a Juris Doctor degree in 1993. He was editor of the Michigan Law Review.

After graduating from law school, deBaca joined the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. At the Justice Department, he prosecuted cases involving involuntary servitude, alien smuggling, money laundering, and organized crime, as well as racial violence and police brutality. He served as counsel to the House Committee on the Judiciary, where his portfolio included immigration reform, civil liberties—especially the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and civil rights issues such as involuntary servitude. As an American diplomat, he coordinates the U.S. Government's fight against contemporary forms of slavery.