León Rodríguez

León Rodríguez (born 1962) is an American lawyer who headed United States Citizenship and Immigration Services under President Barack Obama. He previously served as director the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, as chief of staff and deputy assistant attorney general for the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, and as the county attorney of Montgomery County, Maryland.

Early life and family Childhood and education Rodríguez was born in 1962 in Brooklyn, New York City, to a Jewish Cuban family. His parents, Isaac and Sarah (Policar) Rodríguez, had grown up in Havana and fled to the United States the previous year, during the first wave of the Cuban exodus. Rodríguez's grandparents were Jews from Turkey and Poland; his paternal grandfather and namesake, born "Leon Rodrik," immigrated to Cuba from Turkey in the 1920s.

Rodríguez grew up speaking Spanish at home. When he was four years old, his parents moved the family from New York to Miami Beach, Florida, and he attended local public schools, including Miami Beach Senior High School. He later graduated from Brown University and the law school of Boston College.