We Defend More Than Your Rights—We Defend Your Story

Juan Rocha was born in Chihuahua, Mexico. He immigrated to the United States when he was three years old. He and his parents applied for lawful permanent resident status after President Ronald Reagan signed into law the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which granted lawful status to immigrants who had entered the United States before January 1, 1982. In 1996, he became a United States citizen.

Using his newfound U.S. citizenship, Juan lived in Thailand and globetrotted across Southeast Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Taiwan). After graduating from Arizona State University, he backpacked around Western Europe and later traveled to Central and South America.

In 2001, he moved to Chicago to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago, where he was a student of then-Professor Barack Obama. He received his law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law.

For six years, Juan was an Assistant Federal Public Defender, representing indigent defendants before the federal district court and arguing cases before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Later, he entered private practice, representing clients in criminal and immigration courts. Juan has written extensively on the intersection of criminal and immigration law. His articles have been published by the University of Chicago, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), and The Federal Bar Association, among other journals.

Juan has also made several media appearances and has been quoted by The New York Times on the topic of how the federal government prosecutes undocumented immigrants.

Juan is a Lecturer at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He teaches a class on “crimmigration”—specifically, how the federal government uses the criminal and immigration laws to prosecute noncitizens and the impact it has on a noncitizen’s immigration status. Juan has also presented at various conferences. He was the keynote speaker at the San Diego State University symposium on Crimmigration, the National Association of Legal Investigators, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the Arizona Public Defenders Association.

Juan’s story is an example of how reasonable immigration policy produces good citizens and enriches a country like the United States.