Miguel Angel Estrada Castañeda (born September 25, 1961) is a Honduran-American attorney who became embroiled in controversy following his 2001 nomination by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Senate Democrats, unable to block his nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee after the Republican Party took control of the U.S. Senate in 2002, used a filibuster for the first time to prevent his nomination from being given a final confirmation vote by the full Senate. They said Estrada was a conservative ideologue with no experience as a judge. Early life and education Estrada was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. After his parents divorced, he immigrated to the United States to join his mother when he was 17, arriving with a limited command of English. He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1983. He received a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, in 1986 from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Career Early career Following law school, Estrada served as a law clerk, first for Judge Amalya Lyle Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and then for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court during Kennedy's first year on the Court in 1988. One of Estrada's fellow clerks that year was Peter Keisler, another conservative nominee to the D.C. Circuit whose nomination lapsed during the 110th Congress without a Senate vote cast on whether to confirm. From 1990 until 1992, Estrada served as Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section, U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York. In 1992, he joined the United States Department of Justice as an Assistant to the Solicitor General for the George H. W. Bush Administration where he served with now Chief Justice John G. Roberts. In those capacities, Estrada represented the government in numerous jury trials and in many appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office, he practiced law in New York with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. D.C. Circuit Court nomination George W. Bush nominated Estrada to a position on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on May 9, 2001. He received a unanimous "well-qualified" rating from the American Bar Association. Democratic Senators opposed