Monica is a native of McAllen, Texas. While at SMU, she belonged to several honor societies and was the Hearing Board Chair for the University Hearing Board. Monica was also a Board Member of the University Honor Council.
While in law school, Monica was an Octa-finalist in the Jenkens & Gilchrist Annual First-Year Moot Court Competition and Executive Articles Editor and Staff Writer for The Scholar: St. Mary’s Law Review on Minority Issues. She also studied abroad at St. Mary’s Institute on World Legal Problems in Innsbruck, Austria.
Before joining DMCA, Monica worked at a local law firm practicing criminal law and removal defense. She also volunteered with the Bexar County Staff Attorney’s Office, in addition to working with ProBAR representing unaccompanied immigrant children. Monica has experience in family-based immigration, naturalization, VAWA and U visa petitions, consular processing, and removal defense.
Monica primarily works as DMCA’s lead consular practice attorney, assisting clients that appear before U.S. embassies throughout the world to obtain their immigrant or nonimmigrant visas as well as to obtain waivers for any grounds of inadmissibility that may apply in their particular case. She also handles family-based immigration cases. Monica is fluent in Spanish.
