We’re thrilled to introduce you to Julia Solórzano, CDM’s new Director of Litigation! Julia brings deep empathy and vast experience litigating cases on behalf of migrant workers, and we couldn’t be happier to have her on our team!
A little bit about Julia: Before joining CDM, Julia was a Senior Staff Attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project, where she litigated cases regarding large-scale workplace immigration raids in Tennessee and Mississippi and the unionization rights of farmworkers in North Carolina. Julia received her A.B. from Princeton University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, Julia clerked for U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison of the Southern District of Texas and completed a Skadden Fellowship project focused on the health and safety rights of poultry processing workers.
We are honored to have Julia as part of our incredible team and we look forward to seeing her in action defending the rights of migrant workers and advancing migrant justice.
Read on to learn more about why she decided to join CDM, what led her to join the worker rights movement and what she is most excited about in her new role:
Why did you decide to join CDM?
I was really drawn to CDM in large part because of the binational structure and its ability to reach workers in two countries. To really have that cultural fluency and understanding of the communities from which the workers that we support here in the United States are coming from is really unique.
In my previous roles I worked with a lot of workers from Mexico. Not having that presence in Mexico was something that was always challenging, and so I was really drawn to that. I have been an admirer of CDM’s work from afar for many years, and I feel very lucky that this opportunity came.
Why did you choose to fight for migrant worker rights?
I grew up in a rural part of Florida in Polk County which is the top orange producing county in the state. Both my parents were farmworker attorneys, so there was a lot of awareness in my home about where our food came from, and the conditions of the people who were working to produce that food was always in my consciousness. It was a part of me.
Throughout my education I was involved in various kinds of social justice movements, but I always felt called back to the fight for worker rights. I think this is the fight I found the most energizing. It’s where I felt I could make a real contribution. Similarly with litigation it’s just something that really interests me. I believe that in order to stay in any social justice movement for a long time you need to have energy to keep the fight going even when things seem really discouraging. For me this is the movement where everyday I feel excited to be a part of it.
What are you most excited about in your new role?
I’m excited about the opportunity to have the ongoing dialogue with workers who are organized into the Comité de Defensa del Migrante who are getting information from CDM and giving information to CDM. This direct communication and constant dialogue makes me feel like not only am I part of this movement for worker rights but that I am doing so right alongside the workers. That’s really exciting to me.
Every single one of our litigation cases is fascinating and crucial. Our plaintiffs are extremely courageous in speaking out, and I’m just so excited to partner with them and other leaders in this movement.
I hope that in my time here I’m able to strategize and to push that work forward and really center the priorities of those workers.