Juan Rocha

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 the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which granted lawful status to immigrants who had entered the country before January 1, 1982.  In 1996, he became a United States citizen.  While attending Arizona State University (ASU), Juan studied abroad in Thailand and traveled around Southeast Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia).  After graduating from ASU, he traveled to Western Europe and later Central and South America.  In 2001, Juan moved to Chicago and attended the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago, where he had the fortune of being a student of then-Professor Barack Obama.  He received his law degree from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law in 2006. 

For six years, Juan was an Assistant Federal Public Defender representing indigent clients in federal court and argued cases before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In 2013, he went into private practice and and started the Rocha Law Firm representing clients before the criminal and immigration courts.  Juan has written extensively on the intersection of criminal and immigration law.  Juan has written extensively about the intersection of criminal and immigration law and its impact on non-citizens.  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 publications.  Juan has also appeared on PBS and Spanish-language radio programs to discuss how the federal government uses criminal law as a tool for immigration enforcement.  

Juan is a lecturer at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.  He teaches a class titled, "Southwest Border Crimes."  The class focuses on how the federal government secures the border along the southwest and the impact this enforcement has on noncitizens, in particular, how these prosecutions impact a noncitizen’s immigration status.  Juan has been a presenter at various conferences.  He was the keynote speaker at Sand Diego State University's conference on “Crimmigration"; has been a guess lecturer at the University of Arizona (UA) School of Law; a presenter at the annual Arizona Public Defender Association (APDA); and American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) annual conference.  He has also written editorial pieces and has been quoted by The New York Times.

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