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Carey’s experience of trafficking started when she was just a teenager.
As a young trans woman from a Jamaican immigrant family, Carey’s transition was not supported. At 16, she left home. She struggled to stay in school and had no way to support herself. Someone Carey thought could be trusted said that she would never be able to get a regular job, and teenage Carey believed them.
By the time Carey connected with Leigh Latimer, the Director of The Legal Aid Society’s Exploitation Intervention Project (EIP), she had been exploited by multiple traffickers and had a lengthy criminal record: prostitution convictions and other offenses that were a result of her trafficking.
The timing was right: New York State’s START Act meant that Carey was eligible to have all convictions related to her trafficking conviction vacated. Once Carey’s convictions were vacated, EIP’s immigration attorney Laura Berger stepped in to restore Carey’s permanent residence status, which made her immediately eligible to apply for citizenship.
Leigh also referred Carey to other units within Legal Aid. Our Worker Justice Project was ready to help, leveraging employment law protections to create a fairer path back into the workforce. With their support, Carey was able to get certified as a home health aide and later completed training to become a Certified Nurse’s Aide. The Homeless Rights Project was able to help Carey get a safe apartment after years of unstable housing.
Carey had been through a lot of difficult times, including two years of solitary confinement in prison. But she felt she could talk to her attorneys at Legal Aid about all the hardships. “They never judge me. They made me feel good about myself,” she said.
Carey took the first step: she dreamed of a normal life and a normal job, and when she heard that EIP could help her get there, she got in touch. From there, Leigh and others at Legal Aid helped her build toward the future.
Carey’s years-long involvement with Legal Aid recently reached a celebratory moment: two of her Legal Aid attorneys joined her at her citizenship oath ceremony earlier this year.