I knock on Yunuen Mora’s door. As she lets me in, I see her laptop open, a thick case file, notebooks, and books sprawled across her table. Anyone would think this is a bit of a chaotic mess, but as I talk to her, this is the research and her hard work to determine a decision for one of her clients. As we say our hellos, I get the tour around her new home. Yunuen and I went to high school together in Chula Vista, California but did not run in the same circle. We vaguely remember one another but did connect recently after a friend’s tragic death. As small of a world as this earth is, our daughters are now in the same elementary class, and we are new neighbors in the same condominium community.
Yunuen is a lawyer in San Diego, California and her focus is on immigration law. Yunuen explains that she was an immigrant herself and was intrigued by her own historical experience. Her father came to the United States from Tijuana, Mexico and brought his family along when she was in 7th grade. A young 12-year-old whose life was interrupted for ultimately a better life. She is thankful that her parents made the decision and was always curious about how the process happened.
“As a child, I never really knew the history or reasoning of how we came to the United States. It just kind of happened”.
Yunuen’s father became a citizen through the Bracero program. A program which allowed Mexican workers to fill seasonal jobs on U.S. farms. Since her father was a citizen, as she explained, and since she and her siblings were underage, they could also become citizens of the United States under the family-based immigration law. Yunuen explained that her father would cross the border to work occasionally and cross back to Tijuana to build his medical practice. He finally decided that he wanted to establish a better life for his family in the United States. When I asked Yunuen what her father thinks of her career choice, she mentions that she imagines he is proud since he refers clients to her.
After high school, Yunuen went to the University of California, Berkeley, where she obtained a double bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology. While attending the university, she immersed herself in a course in which they introduced her to law. In one of her courses, she had a project in which they engaged with the immigrants on the fields in Salinas, California. Yunuen worked with the agricultural employees and translated brochures for those employees from English to Spanish. She explained that she would see throngs of immigrants arriving in the fields.
“They would all live in these little huts or houses on the fields, all bunched up. Someone would fly over the fields at night and spray pesticides, and the effects that they would have on these people were so harmful. Some ended up with cancer, and others had babies with missing limbs. It was horrible to see and none of them dared to speak up because they were all scared.”
Yunuen also spent some time abroad when she studied in Spain. She took more law courses to open her mind to what it contained. Once she finished her classes abroad, she obtained assistant law jobs, pushing her to study and take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). She got accepted into the California Western School of Law, based in San Diego, California. During her time in law school, Yunuen volunteered at local San Diego non-profits such as the Employee Rights Center, which provides legal services regarding employment and labor laws, and Casa Cornelia Law Center, assisting in the representation of indigent asylum seekers.
Yunuen passed the California Bar examination and obtained her first job as a lawyer with a former law professor. She also worked at the American Bar Association Immigration Justice Project, representing indigent clients suffering from mental illness during removal proceedings held before an immigration judge to determine whether the individual is to remain in the United States. In 2018, Yunuen opened her own law practice, Cross Border Lawyer, where she has offices in San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico. She works closely with the San Diego Mexican consulate as a consultant. Yunuen is also a member of the Association of Mother Immigration Attorneys (AMIGA). Not only is she a lawyer, but she is also a mother to an amazing little girl named Julia, 5. When I interviewed Julia, I asked her if she knew what her mother did for work, and her response was, “my mom helps people.”
I asked Yunuen what the difficult part was of being an immigration lawyer. “Getting emotionally invested and separating those emotions.” Her assistant Bianca Lopez agreed, “the emotions when working with the clients are hard to separate.”
I also asked Yunuen how it was to be an immigration lawyer when President Trump was in office.
“It was awful. I wanted to quit.”
She explained to me that almost every Friday while President Trump was in office, he would change certain rules or forms that needed to be filled out. Things were always changing, and it was making it difficult to keep track off all the details. She also explained how her simple cases became hard cases with these never-ending modifications. There was however a positive outcome in the migrant community when President Trump was in office, everyone rallied for this community and were willing to help.
“The challenging moments reminded me why I was practicing immigration law.”
The B Side 