Jesus Martinez is Executive Director of the Central Valley Immigrant Integration Collaborative (CVIIC), a Fresno-County based nonprofit organization created in 2014 to empower immigrant families and immigrant serving organizations in the region. As a coordinator of regional efforts, CVIIC and its partner organizations serve immigrants in the region extending from Kern County in the south and San Joaquin County in the north. Before heading CVIIC, he was Coordinator of the Central Valley DACA Project for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (2012-2015) and, previously, worked as a consultant (2008-2013) in a variety of projects commissioned by nonprofit and federal government agencies. Martinez served in the Michoacán (Mexico) State Congress from 2005-2007 before being appointed Director General at the Institute for Michoacanos Abroad, the state immigration affairs agency. In the academic world he taught Political Science at Santa Clara University (1991-1998), completed a postdoctoral stay at the Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora in Mexico City (1999-2000) and taught Latin American and Chicano Studies at CSU Fresno (2000-2004), before joining the Michoacan State legislature. He obtained a B.S. in Political Science at Santa Clara University, as well as an M.A. in Latin American Studies and a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkley. His areas of expertise include international migration, U.S.-Mexican relations and public policy.
As Executive Director of CVIIC, he has developed projects dealing with immigration legal services and community education, health access, the 2020 census, immigrant entrepreneurship, among others. An objective of CVIIC has been to promote regional coordination and collaboration in immigration and related topics. He has served as a member of the State of California Complete Count Committee and the state’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Mobility Task Force.