Marina Garcia is a Department of Justice Accredited Representative with the Immigrants’ Rights Program at Centro Legal de la Raza (Centro Legal), and the Central Coast Coordinator for Immigrants’ Rights at the Watsonville Law Center (WLC).
Marina has worked providing legal intake and representation to newcomer youth and families from Central America and Mexico since 2014, and is dedicated to increasing access to immigrant legal defense throughout California. She has coordinated legal outreach and clinics in the Central Valley, Central Coast, and with school districts throughout the Bay Area to ensure individuals placed in removal proceedings have access to legal services. Marina has also trained and supervised student interns and non-attorney professionals at Centro Legal and WLC on how to conduct comprehensive immigration intakes.
Through her current work at Centro Legal and WLC, Marina coordinates immigrant legal defense services throughout the Bay Area and Central Coast collaboratively in order to best meet the needs of immigrants in historically under-served communities. She is drawn to the mission of Puentes because bridging the justice gap in legal services has and continues to be at the core of her career in legal aid.
Marina holds a B.A. from Cal State University Monterey Bay and an M.A. in Migration Studies from the University of San Francisco, and has been teaching OAKS/LGST 188B since Fall, 2019.