Staff

Julie Kirchner

Senior Advisor, Homeland Security & Immigration

Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while working.

- Henri Matisse

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Julie Kirchner serves as a Senior Advisor in the Homeland Security & Immigration policy team at America First Policy Institute.

Before joining AFPI, Ms. Kirchner served as the Executive Director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), one of the nation’s oldest nonprofits that advocates for common sense immigration reform. Ms. Kirchner served as Executive Director for two periods, first from 2007-2015 and again from 2022-2025.

From 2017 to 2021, Ms. Kirchner served as a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, where she fought to improve the functioning of our immigration system. Her first role was Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Afterwards, Ms. Kirchner served as the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, and later as the Senior Advisor at the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman.

Ms. Kirchner earned her B.A. at Yale University, where she majored in political science. She then returned to her home state of Iowa, where she earned her law degree, with high distinction, at the University of Iowa College of Law. As a young lawyer, Ms. Kirchner worked as a private litigator, a criminal prosecutor, and as counsel at the Minnesota House of Representatives, where she staffed the Judiciary and Civil Law Committees.

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