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Karina Lopez was 7 months pregnant when she made the life-changing decision to leave Ecuador with only one thing in mind, her son. Karina then decided to hire a smuggler to help her cross the Mexican border into Arizona. When she reached America, she stopped in New Jersey for a few days and then continued her path to New Haven.
Karina Was undocumented for 14 years, and never felt safe. She was always scared when she saw a police car in fear that she would be deported. It also didn’t help that Karina didn’t speak English, this was a major set back in starting her new life because she had trouble finding translators. This motivated her to learn English. Karina then got married, and her husband who was an American citizen made a petition for her to become a citizen. Karina took a big gamble because she said the chances of the U.S. granting her citizenship were 50/50.
After this experience, Karina wanted to help other immigrants so she went on Craigslist and found an ad for a job at Apostle Immigrant services. Apostle Immigrant services are located in New Haven, they help immigrants get green cards, citizenship, petitions for family members and more. Karina likes her job there as a paralegal because she gets to interact with everyone and helps translate for people, Karina’s job is also really hard because some of the stories she has to translate are incredibly sad. She recalls wanting to leave meetings to cry because some of the stories were so heartbreaking.
Karina talking at Apostle Immigrant Services
Karina is currently in law school, while working at Apostle Immigrant services and wants to continue helping other Immigrants get legal status and citizenship. Karina also wants to help educate people on how hard it is to be an immigrant. Karina says that people don’t understand that you can’t get citizenship in a day, she said it’s a long process that can take years. Karina said it’s even harder if you don’t have family in America, and she was thankful that her sister was already here to help her.
Karina wants people to have a more open mind when it comes to immigrants. People always ask immigrants why they leave their countries to come to America, Karina’s response was “You would do anything for your family.”
Karina put a pause on her life in Ecuador to come to America to get a better life for her son, and most people don’t understand how hard that is.
Karina remembers a traumatic experience, when she and her son were at the check-out at a grocery store and a woman was telling them to “go back” Karina said this was incredibly scary and confusing. When she looked to the cashier for help he didn't do anything, if the woman had been more open and just asked her why she left her country instead of yelling at her to go back the situation probably would have gone better.
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