By Leah Popoff
Javier Burdette’s life’s passion is defending marginalized communities. A current Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow at Just Neighbors, Burdette understands the tenacity it takes to fight for the rights of those who still dream of a better life – free from oppression and persecution.
Burdette traces the roots of his career to his family’s immigrant background and his time as a UC Irvine Humanities double major that led him to pursue his dream of becoming a lawyer.
Learning on the fly
When Burdette ‘19 (B.A. English, B.A. Philosophy) began his UCI journey, he remembers having only a vague idea of what college would be like. A first-generation student from Modesto, a small rural town in California’s Central Valley where many migrant farm workers live, Burdette reflects that he “had to learn a lot on the fly” when arriving on UCI’s campus. He saw the opportunity to attend university as “opening up a whole new world for me and my family,” an experience he knows he shares with others from his hometown.
In his first year at UCI, Burdette found support through the Humanities Peer Mentor Program, where mentor Cassandra Hall guided his career exploration and connected him with the UCI Best Buddies Chapter – an indelible part of his college experience. He continued to immerse himself in opportunities that helped define the impact he wanted to make in his future career. Through his involvement in the Writing Center, New University and the Humanities Honors Program, his leadership and writing skills flourished.
He realized his passion for social justice work, however, through his time with Best Buddies. “Best Buddies was very important to me because it helped me build a sense of community at UCI,” he shares. He enjoyed his work advocating for marginalized groups in Best Buddies by cultivating social opportunities for individuals with learning and developmental disabilities.
Burdette’s passion for immigrant rights is a dearly held part of his identity, originating from watching his mother’s experience as a Mexican immigrant. “I witnessed some of the processes involved in going from the status that she had back then to being a naturalized citizen,” Burdette explains. “That ultimately influenced my decision to help immigrants here in the U.S. I wanted to give back to folks who I saw as my community through my mom and my Mexican family.”
After his second quarter at UCI, and drawing upon these life and college experiences, Burdette decided to pursue law. He researched which majors perform well in law school, and decided to pursue a double major in both English and philosophy – two majors that also united his interests in literature and writing. It was a character in a novel that first inspired Burdette’s passion for law and its ability to make an impact on the world: “I’ve always wanted to be Atticus Finch, from To Kill a Mockingbird. I respected the character for his strength and how resolute he was, even in the face of his community having turned against him.”
Standing for social justice
After graduating from UCI, but before attending UC Berkeley School of Law, Burdette worked at Catholic Charities San Francisco as a legal assistant, where he gained invaluable immigration law experience during the first Trump administration. Burdette remembers: “I like to think of it as a baptism by fire because we were thrown right into the work, but it was tremendously rewarding.” He adapted to the fast-paced change involved in nonprofits including navigating limited resources, strict grant requirements to pick up a certain number of clients and cases and frequent staff turnover.
In law school, Burdette continued his commitment to social justice advocacy by working with incarcerated individuals who were reentering society through the Reentry Advocacy Project, a student-led program, and also volunteering with the East Bay Community Law Center’s immigration law clinic.
Now a law school graduate, Burdette serves as a legal fellow through his two-year Justice Corps fellowship. Representing children arriving at the U.S. border without documentation, he mainly works on Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), Asylum and U Nonimmigrant Visa cases. SIJS cases typically involve going before a State Court in order to argue that it's in the best interest of the child to remain in the United States because they've usually been abandoned, neglected or abused by one or both of their parents.
Burdette finds his work intellectually stimulating and in alignment with his morals. He especially values removal defense cases where individuals seek asylum. “It gets philosophically heavy trying to define questions such as what persecution is, or the social groups that are necessary elements for asylum.” He is most fulfilled by hearing his clients’ stories, including all the barriers they overcame to get to where they are now. “I get to be the person who finally shows up for them when so many people didn’t – and that is extremely fulfilling, especially when you know that the cards are stacked against them.”
Yet there are undeniable challenges, too. Burdette cites a lack of funding and resources, burnout and the difficulties some clients face when trying to produce evidence as some of the most common hurdles he faces in his professional work. He anticipates that further adversities will arise from a second Trump administration, including the threat of mass deportations and the scaling back of government funding for nonprofits working with immigrants. For Burdette, “It’s scary to know that people’s rights are going to get trampled on even though they are here in the U.S., with deep community roots. It’s very disturbing."
Endings and beginnings
When his Justice Corps fellowship ends, Burdette is considering clerking for a judge or working for the federal government. While he loves nonprofit work, he hopes to gain additional perspectives within the legal field.
Although immigrant justice will face increased challenges, Burdette knows his colleagues will continue to fight. He explains that having survived the first Trump go-around people recognize that “we still have to fight as hard as possible but also recognize the limitations of what we are able to do and avoid burnout. The last thing I want to happen, especially under the circumstances, is people leaving the fight because they can’t handle it anymore.”
We are at the brink of a new era of challenges in our country, but as Burdette’s story conveys, we must not lose the hope we have in the dreams of ourselves and our neighbors – and in justice.
About Leah Popoff
Leah Popoff is a fourth year English major with a minor in Psychological Science. As an intern with the UCI School of Humanities Communications department, she works on projects that allow her to grow as a journalistic writer and strengthen her content writing abilities for social media audiences. Underlying her work is a deep passion for authentic storytelling that not only communicates, but aims to connect and inspire.
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