Mirella Ceja-Orozco 

Mirella Ceja-Orozco serves as immigration counsel, and she has dedicated her entire career to helping people navigate the complicated world of immigration law after experiencing its complexities and witnessing the devastating impact on her own family. Prior to her current role, she practiced immigration law based out of Minneapolis since 2012 and served as an adjunct law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School since 2017.  

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mirella grew up in a mixed-status multicultural household. She could only read and write in Spanish and then in 5^th grade, was placed into ESL classes to help her learn English, where she remained through high school. Mirella was the first person in her family to go to college. She attended University of California-Davis, where she received bachelor’s degrees in political science and Native American Studies. During college, she studied abroad in Accra, Ghana and Oaxaca, Mexico, and participated in the UCDC program where she interned for a semester in Washington, DC working on the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs under Rep. Henry Hyde.  

Following college graduation, Mirella was unsure of how to move forward with her career. She knew she wanted to help people but wasn’t sure of how. Law school seemed out of reach, so she decided to attend University of California-Berkeley, where she received post-baccalaureate certification in Paralegal Studies. It was upon completion of that program that she realized that she ultimately wanted to attend law school- she wanted to be able to be an advocate for others, especially when she’d lived through watching how the system impacted her own family.  

Mirella attended Mitchell-Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. During her law school career, she studied abroad with Chief Justice John Roberts in Florence, Italy and received the Minnesota Justice Foundation award for completing over 600 hours volunteer legal work advocating on behalf of immigrant families throughout the state. She graduated from law school in 2012 and was licensed to practice before the state, federal district and appellate courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court.