Cecilia Muñoz is the Director of the Domestic Policy Council, which coordinates the domestic policy-making process in the White House.
Prior to this role, she served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs where she oversaw the Obama Administration’s relationships with state and local governments.
Before joining the Obama Administration, Cecilia served as Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation’s largest Latino civil rights organization. She supervised NCLR’s policy staff covering a variety of issues of importance to Latinos, including civil rights, employment, poverty, farmworker issues, education, health, housing, and immigration. Her particular area of expertise is immigration policy, which she covered at NCLR for twenty years.
Ms. Muñoz has testified numerous times before Congress and appears regularly in the Spanish- and English-language media. Her media credits include the Today Show, Good Morning America, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Dateline NBC, O’Reilly Factor, CNN’s Situation Room, and National Public Radio.
Ms. Muñoz is the former Chair of the Board of Center for Community Change, and served on the U.S. Programs Board of the Open Society Institute and the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Philanthropies and the National Immigration Forum.
Ms. Muñoz is the daughter of immigrants from Bolivia and was born in Detroit, Michigan. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and her master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley. In June 2000, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in recognition of her work on immigration and civil rights. In 2007, she served as the Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She has received numerous other awards and recognitions from various sources, including the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and a variety of local non-profit organizations.
Cecilia Muñoz's Posts
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New “Shopping Sheet” Will Make It Easier for Students to “Know Before They Owe”
July 24, 2012 at 1:55 PM EDTThe Obama Administration today released a new tool that will make it easier for families to understand the costs and benefits of higher education up-front, so that they can more easily choose a college that is both high-quality and affordable
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Religious Leaders Support President Obama’s Stance on Immigration Reform
June 26, 2012 at 2:03 PM EDTFrom Pope Benedict to prominent Protestant pastors, clergy from a variety of faiths are raising their voices on behalf of immigrants and the need to fix the broken system, and speaking out in favor of the Department of Homeland Security's recently announced process that prioritizes immigration enforcement toward individuals who pose a threat to public safety.
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Deferred Action Process for Certain Young People: Smart and Sensible Immigration Policy
June 15, 2012 at 3:07 PM EDTThis new policy is the latest in a series of steps the Department of Homeland Security has taken to expand the use of prosecutorial discretion designed to ensure that the immigration enforcement system is not clogged with low priority cases
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White House Rural Council Celebrates Its One Year Anniversary
June 11, 2012 at 6:47 PM EDTToday President Obama announced new investments to help rural small businesses expand and hire
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New Report: Health Care Law Invests in Nurses
May 7, 2012 at 7:20 AM EDTThe Obama Administration is committed to educating new nurses, improving the training of today’s nurses, and placing nurses in the parts of the country where they are needed most.
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New Report: Health Care Law Makes Community Health Centers Stronger
May 1, 2012 at 8:15 AM EDTThe Obama Administration announced new grants made possible by the Affordable Care Act that will support 398 renovation and construction projects at Community Health Centers nationwide
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Securing Equal Pay
April 17, 2012 at 12:25 PM EDTAccording to the latest U.S. Census statistics, on average, full-time working women earned 77 cents to every dollar earned by men, which means less for families’ everyday needs, less for investments in our children’s futures, and, when added up over a lifetime of work, substantially less for retirement
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The Doc Fix
February 18, 2012 at 11:47 AM EDTThe Payroll Tax Cut agreement reached in Congress prevents doctors who treat Medicare patients from taking a nearly 30 percent pay cut, which would have harmed physicians and jeopardized seniors’ access to the doctor they know and trust
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Health Reform, Preventive Services, and Religious Institutions
February 1, 2012 at 7:35 PM EDTBeginning in August of 2012, most health insurance plans will cover women's preventive services, including contraception, without a co-pay. Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, explains how this policy affects religious institutions.
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A Look Back at Joplin: United We Succeed
February 1, 2012 at 2:05 PM EDTEight months after one of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history touched down in Joplin, Missouri, the Obama Administration remains committed to supporting the town's long-term recovery.
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