U.S. Magistrate Irma Carrillo Ramirez, whose family worked in the cotton fields of West Texas, has become the first Latina to serve on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The U.S. Senate this week voted 80-12 to elevate Carrillo Ramirez to serve on the New Orleans-based court.
Her confirmation received bipartisan support, with Texas Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz recommending Biden to nominate Carrillo Ramirez, who has served as a federal magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas since 2002.
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“She’s earned the respect of virtually every person with whom she has crossed paths, including myself and Sen. Cruz,” Cornyn said during her nomination hearing in May.
Daniel Mateo, president of the Hispanic National Bar Assn., called Carrillo Ramirez’s confirmation a “momentous occasion,” as well as a “a crucial step towards a more diverse and inclusive judiciary.”
“Her wealth of experience and commitment to justice will undoubtedly contribute to the fair and impartial administration of the law,” Mateo said in a statement.
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Carrillo Ramirez earned an undergraduate degree from West Texas State University, now known as West Texas A&M. She got her law degree from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.
She began her career as an associate attorney for a firm now known as Locke Lord LLP, from 1991-95, before working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
During her nomination hearing, Carrillo Ramirez talked about her father, a Mexican immigrant, who arrived in the United States under the bracero program in the late 1950s. He worked the cotton fields in West Texas, where he met her mother, whose family was from South Texas and also worked those fields.
“I remember as a child very vividly him telling me, ‘Estudia mija, study, so that you don’t have to work in the fields like I do,’ ” she said. “My summers spent hoeing cotton in those fields only served to reinforce this message.”
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“Becoming a judge or even a lawyer was so far beyond his hope of an ‘inside job’ for me, that we couldn’t begin to imagine it, much less dream it,” she added.
By “inside job,” Carrillo Ramirez was referring to working a job indoors with air conditioning.
At the same hearing, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) — chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee — asked Carrillo Ramirez about the re-entry court that she presides over in Texas.
Through that work, Carrillo Ramirez said she has learned more about the obstacles people face when coming out of prison. They struggle with housing, employment, substance abuse and mental health issues, she said.
“The re-entry program has provided a means to help people address these issues so that they can live law-abiding healthy lives,” she said. “The program has taught me so much, more than anything, about the power of redemption. People truly want to do better, and live healthy lives. Sometimes they just don’t know how.”
Asked by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) about why diversity on the bench is crucial, Carrillo Ramirez said: “A judiciary that is representative of the community it serves instills confidence in our system of justice, and it reaffirms the American Dream that the daughter of a bracero can be nominated to sit on a United States court of appeals.”
“Before I was a judge, a little girl asked me if girls could be judges too, and the hundreds of students I’ve spoken to since then only confirms that what I show them, speaks far more loudly than what I say to them,” she added.
