The Hon. A. Ashley Tabaddor is a member of the Biden-Harris leadership team as the appointed chief counsel of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at the Department of Homeland Security. She was appointed as chief counsel in January 2021. USCIS is the agency responsible for administering our nation’s legal immigration system, processing millions of requests for benefits and applications annually, including immigrant and nonimmigrant visas, asylum and refugree processing, and naturalization applications. The chief counsel for USCIS is responsible for overseeing the entire legal program that supports the agency’s domestic and international work.

Prior to her appointment as chief counsel, judge Tabaddor served as an immigration judge. She was appointed to the bench in November 2005 where she presided over the detained, nondetained, juvenile and mental competency dockets. Prior to joining the bench, she served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. She also served as a trial attorney with the Justice Department’s Civil Division in Washington D.C., and as a law clerk and attorney advisor for the immigration court and the Chief Immigration Judge.

From 2017 until her appointment as chief counsel, judge Tabaddor served as the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. She is the recipient of judicial excellence awards by the Mexican-American Bar Association (2019), Armenian-American Bar Association (2014), the Arab American Lawyers’ Association of Southern California (2014), and the Iranian American Bar Association (2013). She is actively involved with the legal and the non-legal community, mentoring and speaking regularly before bar associations, conferences, symposiums, organizations and schools.

Judge Tabaddor received her B.A., cum laude, from UCLA, and her law degree from UC, Hastings College of the Law. Additionally, she has been an adjunct professor with a number of law schools, including George Washington law school, USC and UCLA law schools.