Our Team
Cody M. Brown, Esq.
Managing Attorney
Sanda Brown
Executive Assistant
Our Story
For decades, immigration law was confined to administrative proceedings affecting foreign nationals. Times have changed. Today, immigration issues are impacting the lives of U.S. citizens in family court, criminal court, and civil protective order proceedings nationwide.
In response to this growing trend, Cody M. Brown founded Codias Law, the first immigration law firm in the United States exclusively dedicated to protecting the interests of U.S. citizens in legal and immigration proceedings. Unlike traditional immigration law firms, we do not represent foreign nationals.
Brown is one of the nation’s foremost legal experts on immigration fraud and the risks it poses to individual citizens, public safety, and national security. He is a vocal critic of the weaponization of immigration laws against U.S. citizens and the systemic failures of federal, state, and local governments to protect innocent Americans from false claims by foreign nationals seeking immigration benefits.
With nearly two decades of experience as a licensed attorney, including years working at the intersection of law and national security policy, Brown now practices federal immigration law nationwide, representing green card sponsors and victims of immigration fraud.
Our Fight
Brown’s vigorous advocacy for individual clients is deeply personal. Over a decade ago, his father, former Chair of Anesthesiology at a prestigious healthcare system, battled a life-threatening illness in his own Intensive Care Unit. Brown witnessed firsthand how government policies and funding incentivize behaviors and outcomes that can benefit powerful institutional players—e.g., hospitals and health systems—at the expense of the values and goals of individual patients. Through God's grace and strong advocacy, Brown's father survived.
In the years that followed, Brown saw striking parallels in the American legal system, where government policies and funding incentivize behaviors and outcomes that benefit powerful institutional players—e.g., police, prosecutors, judges, and grant recipients—often at the expense of individual justice and foundational principles of Western jurisprudence.
Biased Investigations: Investigative practices increasingly reflect politically driven agendas, including “victim-centered, trauma-informed” techniques that fail to critically examine claims made by accusers. This approach reduces police to mere stenographers for accusers rather than neutral fact-finders, directly contradicting Western principles of impartial investigations.
Prosecutorial Coercion: Prosecutors wield disproportionate power, using the threat of harsh penalties to coerce individuals—many of whom lack resources to mount a robust defense—into accepting plea bargains. This system prioritizes expediency over truth, forcing even innocent defendants to plead guilty to avoid catastrophic sentences.
Protective Order Abuse: Judges, motivated by fear of worst-case scenarios, frequently issue civil protective orders based on unproven allegations, often without hearings. These orders shield judges from criticism but erode public trust in the judiciary and empower plaintiffs to misuse the system.
Breakdowns in Defense: Defense attorneys, constrained by a plea-driven system and limited client resources, often encourage plea deals over fully investigating and advocating for their clients’ innocence. This practice diminishes accountability for systemic failures and leaves defendants feeling abandoned and powerless inside an impersonal and bureaucratic legal system.
Presumption of Guilt: Accusers are routinely and prematurely labeled as “victims” before a trial has even established whether a crime has occurred or who, if anyone, is responsible. The presence of “victim advocates” who flank predetermined “victims” in court further undermines the rights of the accused, compromising fairness in the judicial process.
Secret Immigration Trials: Foreign nationals exploit systemic vulnerabilities in this system by falsely accusing U.S. citizens of crimes to gain immigration benefits. These accusations are adjudicated in secret trials inside immigration agencies, where the accused is neither notified nor allowed to defend themselves. This weaponizes immigration law against the very citizens it is intended to benefit.
These systemic injustices are the direct result of government policies promoted by radicals seeking to “deconstruct” foundational principles of Western jurisprudence. At Codias Law, Brown fights for U.S. citizens facing these injustices, placing their rights, interests, and dignity at the center of everything we do.
Our Experience
Before founding Codias Law, Brown developed expertise in homeland and national security policies as a staff member in the U.S. House and Senate. He began his legal career on staff with the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, serving on the Senate Special Investigation into Hurricane Katrina—one of the highest-profile congressional investigations since Watergate. This experience yielded insights into planning and executing professional investigations, invaluable for conducting immigration fraud investigations even today.
Brown also served as Legislative Counsel for a member of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, where he managed a national security portfolio and helped the member oversee the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). His time on Capitol Hill equipped him with a deep understanding of DHS’s legal authorities and their practical application—critical for understanding the proper role of U.S. immigration agencies within statutory frameworks.
Later, Brown worked to improve the structure and performance of the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) and Homeland Security Council (HSC) systems at the Project on National Security Reform, a congressionally funded effort of leading national security practitioners. As Senior Counsel and Chief of Legal Research, he contributed to the project’s primary report, co-led the flagship NSC Team, and authored The National Security Council: A Legal History of the President’s Most Powerful Advisers, featured on C-SPAN2/BookTV.
As part of a select team, Brown consulted with senior leaders at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) to improve joint operational planning and intelligence coordination for the U.S. counterterrorism mission. Their work was described by NCTC in The New York Times as “an extremely thoughtful and useful critique of how counterterrorism actions are or are not fully synchronized across the U.S. government.”
These experiences deepened Brown’s understanding of interagency structures and processes, critical for addressing immigration issues that frequently span multiple departments and agencies, including DHS (USCIS, ICE, CBP), the State Department, the Department of Justice (FBI, EOIR), as well as the NSC, HSC, and interagency task forces.
Beyond his legal and policy work, Brown served as Iowa campaign manager for the winner of the 2012 Iowa presidential caucuses, helping to orchestrate one of the biggest upsets of modern presidential campaign history by defeating the dominant establishment candidate. This victory, under the bright lights of the national stage, showcased what Brown’s teams are capable of accomplishing with smart strategy, effective execution, and determination in the face of formidable opposition.
Brown later founded a civic tech startup that gained national recognition, giving him a deep understanding of the capabilities and limitations of data and technology. This expertise has proven invaluable in litigation where a strong grasp of data and technology can give clients a strategic edge in identifying and collecting evidence of immigration fraud through formal discovery processes.
Brown’s professional work has appeared on C-SPAN, Fox News, Daily Caller, Breitbart, Christian Science Monitor, and National Review.
Academics
LLM, Georgetown University Law Center
JD, Hamline University School of Law
BS, Northwestern College
Admissions
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
Board of Immigration Appeals
State Bar of Minnesota