Hispanic Heritage Month: How a driven immigration lawyer changed Idaho’s legal landscape

Editor’s note: This is the fourth and final in a series of stories highlighting Latino Idahoans as part of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Maria Andrade is changing it up.

After decades as a prominent Idaho immigration lawyer, she left the nonprofit she started in June 2023 over concerns with board management and took a year off to travel.

Sitting in a Boise bagel shop in late September, Andrade said she needed to slow down. But now she’s looking into how to further the cause for immigrants in a new way, and figuring out what’s next.

“I want to help the cause here, if I can,” Andrade said. “I want to work on big things.”

When Andrade first started working in Boise, she was the only female immigration lawyer who spoke Spanish, she recalled. She ran a private practice for years. Then she started Immigrant Justice Idaho, a nonprofit that provided immigration services on a sliding scale — people were charged based on their income and what they could afford.

One of the hardest parts of running a private practice was knowing people were going to sell their car to pay an attorney, she said.

“It was the lack of representation,” Andrade said. “Our primary mission was to increase the number of represented people appearing in immigration court.”

However, Immigrant Justice Idaho closed just months after Andrade left.

“It just killed me because it didn’t need to end,” Andrade said, tearing up.

Her Mexican-American heritage has always played a role in how she approaches her work and lives her life, she said. Her dad’s family is from Aguascalientes in the central Mexico mountains, and her mom’s side is from Guadalajara, Jalisco, just southwest of that.

Her house is filled with Mexican art, and Andrade said she loves cooking Mexican dishes such as chilaquiles and enchiladas.

She sees grit and perseverance in her ancestry, Andrade said. But she said her heritage also brings her humility in how she sees the world and deals with people.

Andrade knows that plenty of people are gifted and intelligent even if the world doesn’t see them that way.

“You have to believe you can do whatever you want, to take risks to grow,” Andrade said.