Azucena Abarca
Founding partner
Azucena leads the firm's family petitions and asylum cases, and meets most new families first.
Azucena grew up in East Los Angeles, the oldest daughter of parents who waited years for their own green cards. She read their letters from the government aloud at the kitchen table, and remembers how little those letters explained.
After law school she worked at a nonprofit legal clinic before opening this office with Ezequiel, a few blocks from the house where she grew up.
Azucena's admissions, courts and languages
Bar admissions
California
2009
Courts
U.S. District Court, Central District of California
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Immigration courts (EOIR)
Education
J.D., UCLA School of Law
B.A., California State University, Los Angeles
Languages
Spanish
native
English
Memberships
American Immigration Lawyers Association
How Azucena starts a family's case
Azucena asks for the whole family history before she asks for a single form: who came when, through which border or airport, who was ever stopped, who was ever married before. Most surprises in a petition hide in those answers.
Then she writes it down for you as a one-page plan, in Spanish or English, with what happens first and roughly how long each step takes.