Christopher A. Santoro

I began my public service career as a police officer and New Hampshire district court prosecutor. I also served as an emergency medical technician in New Hampshire and in and around Boston, Massachusetts, and was a volunteer member of a fire department heavy rescue squad.

In 1995, I entered on active duty with the U.S. Air Force as a judge advocate (attorney), ultimately serving for a combined 30 years in the active and reserve forces. As a military attorney, I held a variety of assignments including legal advisor for a military hospital, fiscal law attorney, chief local prosecutor, senior regional prosecutor, faculty member of the U.S. Air Force’s Judge Advocate General’s School providing training throughout the Department of Defense and around the world, and senior reserve attorney for a strategic bomber wing. I was mobilized twice to provide legal support during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. In 2005, I was appointed a military (criminal) trial judge and rose to become the Chief Trial Judge for the U.S. Air Force Reserve and the Chief Reserve Judge on the U.S. Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals. I retired in 2017 as a colonel.

After leaving active duty in 2001, I joined the Department of Justice as a Federal prosecutor. My portfolio included human trafficking investigations and I was selected by the Attorney General to oversee 9/11-related criminal investigations throughout the country. I later brought my experience to the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security. As deputy director and senior advisor within the Transportation Security Administration’s Office of Inspection, I led criminal and administrative investigations related to the nation’s transportation infrastructure and participated in covert testing of the nation’s airport security screening programs. I was then hand-selected for an assignment to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, where I provided senior-level guidance on mass migration contingency operations.

In 2012, I received the first of my three civilian judicial appointments as an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge. In 2017 I was elevated to (and appointed as) principal deputy chief immigration judge and ultimately served in an acting role from 2019-2020 as the nation’s Chief U.S. Immigration Judge. As Chief Immigration Judge, I oversaw the operations of more than 500 immigration judges, more than 2,000 attorneys and professional support staff, and court operations at 69 locations. I led the immigration courts through the largest number of judicial appointments to date and navigated the courts through the early stages of COVID-19 operations.

Since July, 2020, I have served as Deputy Vice Chairman of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals in the Department of Veterans Affairs. As the Senior Deputy Vice Chairman and a Presidentially-approved Veterans Law Judge, I supervise more than 130 Presidentially-approved judges and more than 1,100 attorneys and professional staff. Under my leadership, the Board had four consecutive record-breaking years for hearings held, cases adjudicated, judges appointed, and attorneys hired and trained.

Prior to my public service career, I served as the national remote customer service supervisor for QuantumLink, the computer telecommunications company that later became America Online. I worked for AOL until joining the police department in 1988.