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America now has it’s first legal undocumented lawyer. On January 4th, 2014, the Supreme Court of California granted 34-year-old Mexican-born Sergio Garcia access to the California state bar, allowing him to legally practice law in California. Garcia was brought to the U.S. twice—once as an infant and again as a teenager, and has been living and working in the country without a green card for all of his adult life. He graduated from Cal Northern School of Law in 2009 and subsequently passed the bar exam, but received a notice from the bar association that he couldn’t become an attorney due to his pending immigration status. But after California governor Jerry Brown signed a bill on January 1st that allows the state courts to grant individual licenses to practice law regardless of immigration state, the courts made Sergio Garcia the first legally-sanctioned undocumented attorney. We hear from Garcia about what this new decision means for him.

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