Immigrant of the Day: Miguel Estrada (Honduras)

Miguel Angel Estrada (born September 25, 1961) is a lawyer who whose 2001 nomination by President George W. Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit caused controversy.

Estrada was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. After his parents divorced, he immigrated to the United States to join his mother when he was 17. He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree from Columbia in 1983. He received a J.D. magna cum laude in 1986 from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

After law school, Estrada served as a law clerk to Judge Amalya Lyle Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then clerked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. From 1990 until 1992, Estrada served as Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York. In 1992, he joined the U.S. Department of Justice as an Assistant to the Solicitor General for the Clinton Administration.

Mr. Estrada was also part of the team that successfully presented then-Governor Bush’s position to the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore (2000).

In 2001, President Bush nominated Estrada to a position on the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Democrats opposed the nomination, claiming that Estrada had not provided enough information about his legal views. Estrada’s conservative political views and the concern that he might be elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court also arguably affected the nomination.  For discussion of the nomoination Estrada nomination, click here.

After a protracted nomination process of twenty-eight months, Estrada withdrew his name. Estrada is currently a partner at the Washington, D.C., law office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.

KJ