Biography
I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1963, the fourth of five children. I grew up in the town of Vega Alta and lived there until I decided to come to the mainland US to attend college.
I graduated from Hamilton College with a BA in English Literature in 1982. After college I worked as an assistant to the Governor of Puerto Rico in regulatory matters for three years, a job that led me to a fellowship and a Master's Degree in Public Policy from Tufts University in 1991. I then continued on to law school at Vermont Law School, completing my degree in 1994.
Spanish is my native language and after law school and while studying for the bar exam, I worked as a Spanish interpreter. One day I was sent on an assignment to interpret for a Spanish-speaking family in the Immigration Court in Boston.
“Not all cases have a happy ending, (I never learned how not to be affected by them) but they have never made me doubt for a single second doing anything else with my life. I love what I do!”
As is true for most Puerto Ricans, I knew virtually nothing about immigration but after witnessing firsthand what happened in that hearing I knew then and there I wanted to be an immigration lawyer. Over the course of several assignments with the court I saw the enormity of the issues decided in these small and crowded courtrooms. At stake in these hearings was nothing less than people’s hopes, dreams and aspirations and sometimes even a person’s life and future safety.
I have now been an immigration attorney for over a decade and I have never regretted, even during the most difficult of times, that decision. Over the years I have been able to participate in the legalization of people of all nationalities, professions and backgrounds — people who needed a chance or in some situations a second chance here in the USA. But my practice has enriched my own life, too, in ways I could never have imagined. Two of my former clients became godparents to my children; with the help of another former client I was able to purchase and renovate an office building to house my practice; yet another has become my trusted skiing partner and his children have become friends with mine. My family and I have been enriched by their examples of hard work, humility, honesty and devotion to family.
