INDIANAPOLIS

'Driven by desperation': Fleeing hunger and despair in Mexico to a new life as a Hoosier

Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this story misstated how Karla Lopez-Owens became a citizen. She became a legal resident, and later a citizen, through family-based immigration. ​

Karla Lopez-Owens' favorite thing about Indiana is corn. 

Corn on the cob. Endless fields of corn. Corn mazes. 

She was born in another place that loves corn: the state of Morelos, Mexico, where the flag bears a corn plant. She says seeing corn in Indiana is "comforting," reminding her of her first home and her appreciation for farmers and the agriculture industry. 

In 1999, she, her mother, and her two sisters entered into the United States illegally. She is now a U.S. citizen who has dedicated her life to helping others like her. 

“I think telling my story matters because I’m being very transparent and it’s not easy to go in front of the unknown," Owens said. "I don’t know how people are going to receive this." 

This is her journey. 

The beginning

Owens believes most of her family's problems started when her father walked out in 1992, leaving her mother, Micaela, to care for Owens and her two sisters alone. 

Her mom worked at the school the girls attended. She was paid the equivalent of $2 daily for light cleaning and watering plants. 

They didn't have a car, so they walked everywhere. Despite Micaela's best efforts to keep her children healthy, they were all malnourished, Owens said. 

"The girls didn't have anything to eat and were always crying because they were so hungry. I would call their father and place the girls on the phone so he could hear them cry," Micaela said in an email interview with IndyStar. "They were always getting sick and even though so many people helped us, I just couldn't do it anymore. I was so desperate I couldn't even afford milk." 

They ate out of dumpsters behind their school for food. They picked verdolagas, a green vegetable also known as purslane, on the one-hour trek between their house and their grandmother's.

Most of their meals consisted of tortillas with salt and smashed lemons. They also ate beans and, when they were lucky, some cheese. Meat was too expensive.

Micaela tried to track down the father of her children for financial help. At one point, he suggested that they "give the girls away."

Karla Lopez-Owens (left) poses with her two sisters in Mexico during the 90s. In 1999, her mother, herself and her two sisters would cross the border into the United States illegally.

"I would have rather fled Mexico and died before giving my daughters away," Micaela said. "I was always going to protect them. They were always my priority and responsibility. They still are."

By 1999, Micaela had had enough. 

She told her children they were going to visit family in Mexico City and they all boarded a bus.

Owens, then 8, remembers not understanding why this trip to Mexico City was taking so long. It should have taken no more than two hours. She confronted her mother, who told her to ask the bus driver.

He said they were taking a different route and that they would get to Mexico City eventually — she just had to be patient.

Karla Lopez-Owens poses for a portrait in Fishers, Ind., Thursday, July 25, 2019. When Owens was 8, her mother and two sisters walked for 12 hours to cross into the United States from Mexico, about 70 miles south of Tucson, Arizona, in hopes of escaping poverty.

But the bus driver was a coyote, a person who helps smuggle migrants across the border. The bus ride was going to take nearly 24 hours to get them to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, a town that borders Arizona in the southwestern United States.

From there, they would cross into the United States.

The crossing

The plan didn't work. At least not initially.

Their bus journey had come to an end. The family had been caught and turned back the night before. Now they were trying to cross again, with a new and dangerous route.

They were on foot. It was a December night, chilly and dark. Their group of about 20 had been walking for ages. Owens was exhausted, hungry and confused.

Owens tried to follow her mother's directions as she picked her way over the railroad bridge. Only step on the brown colored bars, her mother warned. If you step on the black, you'll fall to the water — and the rocks — below. 

"I want people to understand we were driven by desperation. We were helpless. My mom was trying to provide basic necessities for us. My mom saw a moral obligation looking at us to do what she did," Owens said.

Owens remembers prickly bushes rubbing up against them as they trekked through the desert. Hearing animals scurry by in the darkness. Being carried on people's shoulders when she became tired.

Karla Lopez-Owens poses for a portrait in Fishers, Ind., Thursday, July 25, 2019. When Owens was 8, her mother and two sisters walked for 12 hours to cross into the United States from Mexico, about 70 miles south of Tucson, Arizona, in hopes of escaping poverty. Motivated by her experience and the current border crisis, the 28-year-old has become a legal advocate for the rights of immigrants.

They walked more than 12 hours until they saw lights in the distance.

"Now, as an adult, it just blows my mind what my mom was able to overcome. Her will and the desperation of a mother to see her children fed," Owens said. "She saw this huge, monumental thing in front of her and against all odds, she took the three of us. ... Just thinking about it, I don't think I would be able to do that if I had kids right now."

Once in Arizona, a car came to pick them up. That's when they started traveling through safe houses, heading toward family in North Carolina.

Sometimes they hitched rides. Sometimes they walked along highways, climbed over barbed wire fences and crawled through sewers.

"Every time I'm on the highway and it's nighttime and the cars are going by and the lights flash through the metal guard rails, the memory comes back. Because that's what we had to hide behind," Owens said. 

It took a month to get to North Carolina.

Owens' mother worked in a turkey processing factory for a few weeks, but it became clear she couldn't keep working there. She was underpaid and overworked.

Then a phone call came. It was Owens' aunt who lived in Indiana. The hotel she worked for was looking for a new housekeeper, and if they came right away, her mom could get the job.

So they packed their bags and headed to Indiana.

A Hoosier is born

Her mother worked a string of jobs in housekeeping, janitorial services and agriculture.

"We were constantly following the jobs. So we went to a different school for every year of our lives except for high school," Owens said. "We lived everywhere."

Karla Lopez-Owens (middle) poses with her sisters at an apartment complex in Indiana. They didn't have enough money for swimsuits so Owens' mother would cut pants into shorts for them to swim in.

In 2001, Owens' new stepfather filed a petition on the family's behalf. The family went to the U.S. Consulate General in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico for an interview. They then gained approval for green cards, received a visa packet and returned to the U.S. as lawful residents.

In 2009, they applied and became U.S. citizens. 

Owens said that she felt like an "invader" for many years — even after she became a citizen. 

But with the help of organizations in Indianapolis, such as the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic, she channeled those feelings toward helping others.

Karla Lopez-Owens poses for a portrait, July 25, 2019.

She attended the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI, earning a bachelor's degree, followed by the McKinney School of Law at Indiana University.

Now 28, Owens works as a law clerk at Defur Voran in Fishers, Indiana. She often works with asylum seekers, individuals who have been trafficked into the U.S. and detained individuals who have been living in Indiana without legal permission.

She also spends her time expanding the non-profit organization she helped found in 2012: the Indiana Undocumented Youth Alliance. The alliance gives support to undocumented youth through financial assistance and other outreach programs. Right now they are expanding to help the parents of undocumented youth as well.

"I feel indebted to the state of Indiana, to the people who have supported us and so many people in our situation, without a second thought," Owens said. "I truly love Indiana and I feel a great privilege I get to work with detained people every day, asylum seekers, victims of violent crimes in the U.S. and the state agencies involved in these processes."

A hope for unity 

Owens encourages people to put themselves in an immigrant's shoes and think about the factors that go into someone making the decision to illegally cross the border.

"You see an opportunity that you know is going to alleviate a lot of the hardships your children are experiencing right then and there. And someone places a piece of paper in front of you and says you can't do that, you can't take that risk. You have to go through all of this," Owens said.

To obtain a U.S. visa from Mexico, immigrants must submit a petition and pay multiple fees.

John Broyles, immigration attorney at BKR Law in Indianapolis, said many people who enter the country illegally don't even bother going through the visa process because it does take so long. This wait time is a result of immigration law reforms that were made in 1965.

"We keep constantly accepting applicants, but the number of visas is very small," Broyles said. "And as a result, somebody from Mexico, right now today, unless you marry a US citizen, all of your other family-based options are pretty much off the table. Meaning, there’s already more people in line than there are visas to give out for the next 100 years."

Karla Lopez-Owens poses for a portrait in Fishers, Ind., Thursday, July 25, 2019. Owens co-founded the Indiana Undocumented Youth Alliance, which provides scholarships and other advocacy resources to undocumented youth.

Owens just wants people to be open to a conversation about immigration.

"I'm hoping for more unity and more understanding," Owens said. "I'm hoping that someone who is so angry about immigrants being here in the U.S. is receptive to having a conversation with an immigrant, with someone who looks like me. To sharing a meal."

The seal on the Morelos flag, surrounding the stalk of corn, reads: "The earth will come back to those who put the labor in." Owens feels that's a shared sentiment among agricultural workers everywhere, whether in Mexico or in Indiana.

Because none of us, Owens says, are that different.

"Give us a chance to have a conversation with you," Owens said, "and I bet we hold a lot of the same things dear."

Email IndyStar reporter Justice Amick at jramick@bsu.edu. Follow her on Twitter: @JusticeAmick.