“I wanted to be a lawyer since the second grade. I thought I’d be doing criminal law—like Law & Order. But life had other plans for me. I was born in Ciudad Juárez. When I was four, my parents brought me and my sister to the U.S. with border crossing cards. That was normal for people living near the border. We ended up settling in Richmond, California, where my aunts lived. We overstayed our visas and became undocumented. For the longest time, we lived in fear.
My mom drilled it into us: ‘Never tell anyone.’ So I didn’t. Not even when a lawyer came to my high school for career day. My teacher told him about my dream, and he offered me a file clerk job. I turned him down—I didn’t have papers, and I was too scared to say why. That secret was like a weight I carried everywhere. But something about him made me feel safe. I told him the truth. That we’d been here twelve years, undocumented. He was shocked.
He connected me with an immigration attorney, and for the first time, we saw a glimmer of hope. There was a pathway called “cancellation of removal.” It’s hard to qualify—you have to prove you’ve lived here for ten years, and that your U.S.-born kids or spouse would suffer if you were deported. We didn’t even know if it would work. We spent five years in deportation proceedings. It was terrifying. But somehow, it worked. We had a strict judge, and we were sure he’d say no. But he didn’t. He approved us. We got our green cards when I was 21.
That moment changed everything. We could finally breathe.
I put myself through law school. I became an immigration attorney so I could help others walk that same path. My mom, who used to clean houses, became a Spanish immersion teacher years later after she got her green card. My dad went from being a cook, installing flooring to starting his own flooring business. Two of my sisters work for the school district, and my other sister for the community. My parents never had those opportunities in Mexico. There, even though my parents had good jobs, we lived in poverty and the machista culture was oppressive for someone as outspoken as me.
Today I work for a small immigration nonprofit in the East Bay. Most of our clients are indigenous Guatemalans or LGBTQ asylum seekers. We are hoping to get a grant to start a removal defense unit—that’s where my heart is. Due process matters. Everyone deserves the chance to migrate for safety and opportunity.
But it’s getting harder. Immigration policy keeps changing. There’s so much fear in the community—people are too scared to go to school or the hospital. Even legal residents are unsure if they’re safe. I’ve had clients self-deport—go back to dangerous places—because they’re too scared to stay.
There’s not enough of us to meet the need. We need more immigration attorneys. Volunteers. Translators. People to help prep documents and get folks ready for court. We hold ‘Know Your Rights’ workshops almost every weekend. And they’re working—people are starting to speak up. ICE agents are being turned away.
But we need U.S. citizens to step up, too. Protest. Protect your neighbors. Use your privilege to speak up—because undocumented people can’t always safely do that.
I just wish more people understood the sacrifice. Nobody wants to leave their family behind. People don’t risk everything unless they’re desperate. They come here for their kids. For a chance. And once they get here, they work the jobs no one else wants. They work hard.
This job doesn’t make you rich. But I didn’t choose this to make money. I chose this because I think of that scared kid I used to be. I do this for the kids who come home and worry their parents might be gone. I do it so our community can stop surviving in the shadows and start thriving.”
