Karla Rosas

Karla Daniela Rosas graduate from the Stone Center’s Latin American Studies M.A. program in May 2019. She earned her B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Loyola University New Orleans in 2015. While at Loyola, Karla was the recipient the “Outstanding Graduating Senior” award in both her departments; she also presented a Philosophy Honors thesis titled, “Creating the Illegal: A Sartrean Analysis of U.S. Anti-Immigrant Culture.” From 2014 until 2016 she worked with the Workplace Justice Project of New Orleans, first as a volunteer translator and later as the Wage Claim Clinic administrator. While in this capacity, she worked with WJP to provide mostly low-wage immigrant workers deprived of wages with access to education, litigation, and advocacy.

Prior to joining the Stone Center in 2017, Karla worked as a full-time paralegal for an immigration law firm in New Orleans, where she assisted in preparing petitions for political asylees, unaccompanied minors, and survivors of domestic violence. Currently, Karla is researching the development of “Alternatives to Detention” programs as forms of gendered immigration enforcement. She is also a member of Congreso de Jornaleros, an immigrant advocacy organization in New Orleans, and of the Undocumented Student Support Committee here at Tulane University. Her research interests include immigration criminalization, the experience of gendered “illegality,” gender-based violence in Central America, and immigrant networks in southeastern United States. A proud DREAMER, Rosas is originally from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, but grew up in Texas and Louisiana.