His parents, Salvador and Francisca, had emigrated from Mascota, a small Mexican town near Puerto Vallarta in the state of Jalisco.

[4][5][8] During his tenure with the Narcotics Enforcement Division, Curiel handled a case involving two alleged members of the Arellano Felix cartel of Tijuana, Mexico.

[6][7] U.S. law enforcement arrested the two alleged murderers in California, based on information from Mexican authorities, and Curiel sought their extradition to Mexico.

[13] Curiel hailed the ruling, which he said might lead to greater cooperation between the two countries in the fight against the drug cartel.

[4][5][8] In 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Curiel to the San Diego County Superior Court.

[20][21] In March 2016, Curiel allowed Makaeff to withdraw her name from the first lawsuit, and the case was retitled Low v. Trump University.

[18][22] In May 2016, Curiel granted a request by The Washington Post for public release of certain Trump University documents and depositions that had been filed in the case.

I think that's fine",[28] while suggesting that the judge's ethnicity posed a conflict of interest in light of Trump's proposal to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.

[18] Legal experts were critical of Trump's original attacks on Curiel, viewing them as racially charged, unfounded, and an affront to the concept of an independent judiciary.

[31][32][33][34][35][36] On June 7, 2016, Trump issued a lengthy statement saying that his criticism of the judge had been "misconstrued" and that his concerns about Curiel's impartiality were not based upon ethnicity alone, but also upon rulings in the case.

[37][38] In reply, Cato Institute fellow Nat Hentoff wrote that thus far in the case, Curiel had ruled in Trump's favor far more often than not, including granting his motion to delay the trial until after the 2016 presidential election, and concluded that "Donald Trump has an odd way of showing his appreciation for a trial judge who, as his attorney said, is just 'doing his job'.

[40][41] Curiel also heard a case brought by the State of California and California Coastal Commission, a number of environmentalist groups, and U.S. Representative Raúl Grijalva (Democrat of Arizona) that challenged waivers issued in 1996 and 2005 that allowed the federal government to bypass some federal and state environmental laws to promote border security.

Three separate lawsuits were initially brought, challenging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's power to waive these laws to construct a border wall.

[47] Curiel is a member of American Bar Association, and served on the ABA's Hispanic Advisory Committee of the Commission on Public Understanding about the Law from 1993 to 1998.