Sandra Saltrese-Miller

SANDRA SALTRESE-MILLER is an attorney who has fought for the rights of immigrants for over two decades and has been in the forefront of immigration litigation. She has represented scores of clients in Immigration Court and Federal Court. Before opening her own immigration law firm, she was the supervising immigration lawyer at the Justice Information Center, one of Denver’s most well established nonprofit immigration clinics, where she defended indigent immigrants against deportation. She also specializes in appellate litigation both in immigration law and criminal law. She has been retained as an immigration law expert by myriad  criminal defense lawyers and the Colorado Supreme Court Attorney Regulation Counsel.

A lawyer of firsts:
Ms Saltrese-Miller filed the first Violence Against Women immigration case in Colorado. She co-counseled the first constitutional challenge against the government’s restrictive immigration legislation in the Tenth Circuit Appeals Court. See Jurado-Gutierrez v. Gonzalez, 190 F3d 1135 (10th Cir. 1999). She also successfully litigated the first “illegal disclosure” asylum case in Colorado, where she halted deportation of asylum seekers whose asylum materials were illegally disclosed to their country of origin. Ms Saltrese-Miller also specializes in employment based visas and has represented research scientists, artists, a preeminent ballet dancer and choreographer, a British rock star, a television star, and academic scholars.
REPRESENTATIVE CASES Contreras-Canche v Immigration and Naturalization Service 28 F3d112 (10th Cir 1994) (Abuse of discretion not to review all evidence in a Motion To Reopen.) Jurado-Gutierrez v INS 190 F3d 1135, 1148 (10th Cir 1999) ("The presumption against retroactivity remains the appropriate default rule.") Nagahi v. INS, 219 F.3d 1166, (10th Cir 2000) (The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals court retained Ms. Saltrese-Miller in a separation of powers case and found that Immigration & Naturalization Service’s regulations that attempt to limit federal court jurisdiction are without effect) Huerta v. Gonzales, 443 F.3d 753, 757 (10th Cir. 2006) (Board of Immigration regulations are claim processing requirements and are not jurisdictional)

Her diverse career has run the gamut -- from her first law clerk position at the Rothstein Law firm in Santa Fe, one of the nation’s top litigation firms (registered in Martindale Hubbell as a “preeminent” law firm) – to the recent legal directorship of Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (“SPAN”) (SPAN has sheltered more than 8,065 women and children, responded to 146,055 crisis calls, counseled 18,357 individuals on an outreach basis, and performed more than 8,650 educational presentations on interpersonal violence for groups throughout Boulder and Broomfield Counties. Several SPAN programs have been nationally recognized as model domestic violence intervention and prevention programs).
L.A. TIMES Immigration officials allegedly drugged deportees: An ACLU lawyer condemns the incidents in L.A. as 'horrifying.' Both men remain in the U.S. while appealing their cases. By Anna Gorman and Greg Krikorian, L.A. Times Staff Writers May 9, 2007 U.S. immigration officials sedated two foreign nationals against their will during failed attempts to deport them in Los Angeles, the men and their attorneys said Tuesday… It is inappropriate to give these kinds of injections and put people on aircraft in violation of the federal air regulations that prohibit the transport of drugged individuals," said professor Abraham R. Wagner of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. "It is not how America's constitutional democracy is supposed to operate in this century."… "Because the subjects are not citizens, they are fair game for abuse and mistreatment," he said... In the last several years, Denver attorney Sandra Saltrese said, she has had two deportation clients who were allegedly drugged before being sent out of the U.S. In both cases, she said, the men were seeking asylum. "These men were docile … they were not suicidal," she said.
Ms. Saltrese-Miller has also been outspoken and pedagogical regarding the plight of noncitizens. She has given many presentations (both locally and nationally) and taught courses in both the University of Colorado Law School and the University of Denver, College of Law.SANDRA SALTRESE-MILLER is an attorney who has fought for the rights of immigrants for over two decades and has been in the forefront of immigration litigation.