Elyssa Pachico

Elyssa Pachico is the Media Engagement Specialist at the America Immigration Council, where she coordinates media relations and develops strategic communications plans for traditional and new media. She has dedicated her career to helping the public better understand how human rights intersects with some of the biggest policy challenges in the Americas: migration, organized crime and corruption, and press freedom

Prior to the Council, she led the communications team at Alianza Americas, a grassroots coalition of over 50 migrant-led activist groups across the United States. Previously, she worked as an editor and the interim communications director at the Washington Office on Latin America, developing messaging around human rights abuses at the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout the Americas. She also ran the newsroom at InSight Crime, a media organization that covers organized crime in Latin America, and, at the International Center for Journalists, directed a program that provides training opportunities for journalists in countries with little press freedom. Elyssa is a graduate of Colegio Bolivar high school in Cali, Colombia, and holds a BA in humanities from Weslyean University and an MA in journalism from American University, where she was the Investigative Reporting Workshop fellow.