Cesar Augusto Perales (born November 12, 1940) is an American attorney, civil servant and was the previous Secretary of State of New York in the Cabinet of Governor Andrew Cuomo.
"[citation needed] Perales went on to earn a bachelor's degree from City College in 1962 and graduated from Fordham Law School in 1965.
[1] Upon graduating from Fordham, Perales worked at the legal unit for a Ford Foundation-funded program on the Lower East Side of New York called Mobilization for Youth.
In its early days, the fund, known by the acronym PRLDEF (pronounced pearl-deaf), brought many important civil rights lawsuits on behalf of Latinos living in New York City and across the U.S.
Within six months, PRLDEF was at the forefront of litigation to get the Justice Department to block the election of the New York City Council until district lines were redrawn in a nondiscriminatory manner.
Perales left government in 1994 to assume the position of senior vice president at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.
Under Perales's leadership, the group was also among the first to challenge violent early morning raids of private homes by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The organization has also filed a unique petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, arguing that the United States' aggressive immigration enforcement policies create a climate that fosters bias crimes.