Mark Anthony Vasquez serves on the Statewide Leadership Council's Steering Committee, managing outreach. He was raised in the border communities of South Texas and is active in local and regional efforts to resist the over-saturation of law enforcement and the criminalization of marginalized communities on the border. Formerly convicted himself, Mark is determined to cultivate a voice of resistance for the system-impacted and continues to work to introduce programs and local initiatives to derail the targeting and over-incarceration of what are some of the most under-represented and impoverished communities in South Texas. Committed to the struggle against border injustice, Mark is co-founder of The John Manuel Project, created in 2018 as a family-run organization, which advocates for those held captive beneath the full weight of the criminal legal system in the Rio Grande Valley.
