Rosie Read is the founder of Wyoming Immigrant Advocacy Project. She is a bilingual immigration attorney with more than fifteen years of experience and an established community leader on immigration issues in the Teton region and beyond. She is also an adjunct immigration law professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law.

Before launching WIAP, Rosie served as an immigration staff attorney at the ACLU of Wyoming, assuming responsibility for creating a new immigrants’ rights program and expanding the organization’s efforts to safeguard immigrant rights around the state. Prior to her tenure at the ACLU, Rosie was the Teton Area Program Director for Climb Wyoming, a statewide nonprofit program that equips low-income single mothers with job skills and facilitates their career placement. In recognition of her leadership within the Climb program during the coronavirus pandemic, Rosie earned a nomination as a 2020 Wyoming Business Report Woman of Influence.

The bulk of Rosie’s career has been spent as a private immigration practitioner in Teton County, Wyoming. As an associate at Jackson’s only private immigration law firm for nearly ten years, she provided representation in a wide range of practice areas, including employment- and family-based adjustment of status, naturalization, removal defense, federal court litigation, and various forms of humanitarian relief. Her commitment to vulnerable populations in Wyoming has resulted in hundreds of approved benefits applications, successful appeals, and motions to reopen, as well as numerous instances where removal proceedings were terminated or avoided altogether. In 2018, Rosie was appointed as a legal services provider in U visa, VAWA, and naturalization matters through Mexico’s Program of Legal Assistance to Mexicans through External Legal Assistance in the United States (PALE) program.

Beyond her legal career, Rosie has committed her time and skills to various causes. She has served as a crisis services case manager in Jackson, Wyoming, pro bono refugee attorney in Johannesburg, South Africa, and volunteer with organizations dedicated to issues ranging from affordable housing to nonprofit community radio. She holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Purdue University and a juris doctor degree from Seattle University School of Law.