For more than two decades, Jason Marks has worked where law, institutions, and human lives intersect.

At the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, Marks led post-conviction investigations in death-penalty cases in Alabama and Georgia—uncovering failures of counsel, interviewing witnesses, jurors, and family members, documenting trauma and social history, and navigating a system where poverty, race, and procedure often determined who lived and who died. He served as the lead investigator during the first two years of the post-conviction investigation of Toforest Johnson, who remains on Alabama’s death row after 28 years despite substantial evidence supporting his innocence and broad calls for a new trial.

Marks is also interviewed in Earwitness, Beth Shelburne’s nationally recognized investigative podcast about Toforest Johnson’s case, named by Entertainment Weekly among the 30 greatest true-crime podcasts of all time.

Marks separately investigated prisons and jails for litigation challenging unconstitutional conditions of confinement. He also observed courtrooms across Georgia as part of litigation challenging the state’s inadequate indigent-defense system—work that contributed to the creation of a statewide public-defender system.

As an attorney, Marks later represented people diagnosed with mesothelioma and other fatal asbestos-related diseases in complex civil litigation, taking depositions, writing and arguing motions, and preparing cases for trial.

Marks left private legal practice to serve in the Peace Corps in Ukraine. At Cherkasy Specialized School No. 3, he taught English, American culture, civics, and volunteerism to students from third through eleventh grade, while helping establish an English-language debate program and a broader culture of student service. At two local law schools, he taught courses comparing constitutional systems and focused on the rule of law. He also founded a Law and Justice Working Group that helped Peace Corps Volunteers implement similar curricula throughout Ukraine. He secured PEPFAR support for two student-led projects and headed the committee that reviewed grant proposals from other Peace Corps Volunteers.

Living and working within local institutions gave him a firsthand view of democratic aspiration, corruption, and the long reach of authoritarianism. The experience—formed through friendship, language, teaching, and daily life—still shapes his writing about Ukraine, service, memory, and America’s role in the world.

At USCIS, Marks served as an Asylum Officer, Refugee Officer, Asylum Training Officer, Senior Refugee Officer, and Supervisory Refugee Officer. He adjudicated thousands of asylum and refugee cases in assignments ranging from Nauru to Dilley, Texas.

As a senior and supervisory refugee officer, he reviewed hundreds of cases and supervised officers responsible for consequential protection decisions. As an Asylum Training Officer, he trained hundreds of asylum and refugee officers across legal, interviewing, credibility, security, and adjudicative practice.

Marks spent four years as Chief Union Steward for the USCIS Refugee Affairs Division, leading a team of stewards and the division’s day-to-day union work. He advised and represented colleagues in grievances, workplace disputes, disciplinary and other adverse actions, and collective bargaining with agency management.

He also co-led public advocacy on behalf of refugee and asylum officers during the first Trump administration, including congressional engagement, media and public outreach, open letters, public speaking, and collaboration with humanitarian organizations. Marks organized union amicus participation in several major national cases challenging refugee and asylum policies adopted during that period.

Today, Marks provides expert analysis, litigation support, case assessment, professional training, and speaking grounded in eleven years of legal and operational experience inside USCIS.

He also writes about asylum, refugee protection, immigration policy, public institutions, the federal workforce, democracy, and Ukraine, while developing original television, film, and theatre under the byline J.D. Marks.