Johnny, a 30-year-old male immigrant, talked about the obstacles he faced when he tried to immigrate to the United States as a Colombian national. He was born in Venezuela, brought up in Colombia, and then moved to New York City at the age of 11 and back again at 18:
They had applied for us to come to the United States as a Colombian citizen, but at the time Columbia was experiencing one of its most dangerous, most violent times probably in recorded history. And, Colombians have a stigma with them of being cocaine smugglers or something that’s negative. […] And so because they applied for us under Colombian citizenship, I was denied. I could have entered the U.S. under Venezuelan citizenship with no problem. But we did not know the law, we did not know that was possible, that it could be that simple. So, because I was denied, my mother at the time […] she tried to get us, get me, here.”
