Brea Burgie

Brea Burgie recently concluded seven years of service as an Immigration Judge in Denver, Colorado, a role she stepped into after more than a decade of varied work within the immigration law system. Her professional journey began not in law but in social work, supporting survivors in domestic violence shelters — an experience that convinced her attorneys held greater capacity to drive meaningful change than social workers alone. That conviction carried her through law school, from which she graduated in 2007, and into a career defined by a steady progression of increasing responsibility: a clerkship, leadership of a nonprofit organization, a position as an attorney advisor at the Phoenix Immigration Court, and eight years spent in the general counsel's office at immigration court headquarters, where she also served as fraud counsel identifying and referring cases of immigration fraud for prosecution. Before ascending to the bench, she briefly departed government service to build a legal program from the ground up for the International Rescue Committee in Denver, extending immigration services to survivors of torture.

Throughout her career, Burgie has been driven by a deep-seated commitment to confronting injustice and lifting up vulnerable populations, a philosophy that shaped both her rise to the judiciary and her eventual departure from it. She has described her time on the bench as demanding in ways that extended beyond the courtroom, citing the emotional toll of deportation rulings and the professional isolation that judicial ethics impose on those who serve. Her tenure came to an abrupt end when she was among roughly 150 immigration judges dismissed by the Trump administration, a termination she regards as politically driven and unlawful, and which she intends to formally contest. Rather than stepping back, she has chosen to redirect her energy toward representing asylum seekers, supporting fellow immigration attorneys, and pursuing federal appeals on behalf of clients seeking a fairer hearing.

Looking ahead, Burgie is preparing to launch a consulting practice that will draw on her judicial perspective to help immigration attorneys build stronger, more persuasive cases. She plans to deepen her involvement with a Colorado-based asylum organization while continuing her long-standing philanthropic support of Doctors Without Borders and the International Rescue Committee. Beyond her professional pursuits, she is a devoted mother who cherishes time with her children, an enthusiastic skier, and an avid reader of history — interests she recently combined on a three-week road trip retracing Revolutionary War sites from Washington, D.C. to Boston in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. To the next generation of women entering her field, she offers a simple but enduring philosophy: seek out diverse experience at every turn, and never underestimate the power of the relationships built along the way.