Edgar Saldivar is a senior staff attorney who represents ACLU clients in high-impact litigation in federal and state courts across Texas. His practice focuses on voting rights, immigrants’ rights, and free speech.
Prior to the ACLU, Edgar handled complex business disputes in the private sector. After an accomplished career, including recognition as one of Houston’s 40 Under 40 by the Houston Business Journal, Edgar pursued “the good fight,” seeking justice and equality and defending the civil rights and humanity of all people in Texas.
In his first year with the ACLU, he attained record-breaking settlements against the U.S. government that resulted in changes to immigration enforcement policies at the border. The following year he led a team of volunteer lawyers at Houston’s Intercontinental Airport in the broad effort to prevent constitutional violations of protesters and travelers affected by the president’s Muslim ban. He later secured the release of a 10-year-old child with cerebral palsy from unlawful federal custody and reunited her with her family. Subsequently, Edgar has appeared as counsel in the U.S. Supreme Court, including in Trump v. New York — a landmark case that successfully blocked attempts to exclude noncitizens from the Census — and in Brackeen v. Haaland — a landmark victory for tribal sovereignty that upheld the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act against challenges by the Texas attorney general.
Edgar leads trial teams fighting voter suppression in Texas, notably the historic challenge to Senate Bill 1, an omnibus voter suppression law passed in 2021. In November 2020, he successfully represented voting rights organizations against efforts to void over 126,000 drive-thru votes cast in Harris County, Texas, the third largest county in the U.S. He also serves on the statewide, nonpartisan Election Protection coalition.
A sought-after public speaker, Edgar has testified before Congress, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and the Texas legislature. He’s been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School, NYU School of Law, Duke University School of Law, and Wiley College — a historically Black institution that recognized Edgar with its “Men of Strength Award” for his demonstrated commitment to “educate the youth, inspire, and lead.” In 2017, he was the only Texas attorney and sole representative of the nonprofit sector honored by the Hispanic National Bar Association with its Top Lawyers Under 40 Award.
Born and raised in the ancestral lands of the Karankawa, Ishak, and Akokisa peoples, Edgar is the son of Mexican immigrants. Hustling through poverty and first-gen challenges, he graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. He holds a law degree from the University of Houston Law Center and completed post-graduate studies in psychology and French at Rice University.
