After nearly a seven-year long process, ice dancer Christina Carreira, age 25, finally can call herself a U.S. citizen, eligible to compete at the Winter Olympics.
Walking out of the immigration office in Detroit, Michigan on Thursday, passport in hand, Carriera — who is Canadian — and partner Anthony Ponomarenko, now have cleared possibly the toughest hurdle standing between them and the 2026 Milan Cortina Games in February.
The pair have represented the United States internationally at both the junior and senior levels for over 12 years. Fifth at the 2025 World Championships, two-time Four Continents champions, three-time U.S. national medalists, they are seen by many as a foundational team of the next generation of American ice dance.
But despite the accolades and success she’s brought the U.S. over the years, Carreira did not have a smooth path to citizenship.
“I started applying when I was 18, because you can't apply before, and I had to get the athlete visa at first,” Carreira said. “From there, I applied for the alien of extraordinary ability. That was really hard to get. I applied two or three times.”
That meant that every competitive result came with an extra layer of pressure: not only did each placement matter for their trajectory in the sport, but the outcome influenced the decisions for Carriera’s visa eligibility.
“Results were a huge component in my getting approved, and getting things expedited,” Carreira explained. “Which was stressful, because I didn't just want to just do well for me. I wanted to do well so that I had more to put on my applications. The better the results were, the more things were likely to go well.”
Faced with visa rejections, Carriera and her parents were introduced to lobbyist Matthew Mason. That led to a conversation with Michigan senator Gary Peters, meetings with a former judge, and connections with a powerhouse of individuals, including congresswoman Lisa McClain, working to help Carreira and Ponomarenko realize their Olympic dreams.
“U.S. Figure Skating (the sport’s national governing body) was so helpful,” she added “[Head of performance] Justin Dillon sat on so many calls with my lawyer and my parents. He wrote letters for me. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee wrote letters for me. We had a lot of people helping us.”
In November of 2020, Carreira finally was awarded a Green Card, and then began the unavoidable five-year-long wait for her citizenship per U.S. immigration law.
Crossing the border
In 2021, Carreira and Ponomarenko knew they wanted to change their coaching team, and hoped to train with the Ice Academy of Montreal and two-time Olympic champion, Scott Moir, in London, Ontario. But Carreira’s Green Card status limited their options. “We were like, 'wait, I can't live outside of the U.S.,'” Carreira said.
The only way Carreira wouldn’t lose her Green Card was if she trained in Canada, but lived in the United States. Thus would begin the next four years of hours-long drives over the border five days per week as Carreira drove from Saint Clair, Michigan to train.
“The mileage on my car is crazy,” Carreira said. “I had a three-year lease, and I got the car right when I moved to London, and when I returned it, the kilometers were over 100,000 (62,000 miles). They were like, ‘What did you do?’ I now have another one that's like a year old, and I think I'm already at like 60,000 kilometers" (over 37,000 miles).
The impact hasn’t just been on her car. The drive can be exhausting, and the physical and emotional toll has not been a small matter.
“It's definitely less than ideal, especially in the winter,” she said. “That highway is basically all fields, so it's super windy, and if it snows, it's just really scary.”
She tries to make use of the time, listening to podcasts (“I'm really obsessed with this show, ‘Dance Moms.’ There's a podcast called ‘Back to the Bar’ with two of the moms, and that's my favorite podcast ever,” she said). She also has made friends with the border crossing agents who see her every day.
“They are always super nice with me, especially the American ones, because I come back around the same time every day, and I usually get the same people,” she said. "A lot of them know us and they watch us skating and they check in to see where my next competition is or how it's going.”
But living in a small town far away from family, from her skating partner and friends, spending hours alone in the car has been isolating. “There's not much around. And there's also no one around,” she said.
Carreira said she now has her citizenship and she can’t wait to be able to move closer to the rink. “That's going to be so amazing. It's going to change my life.”
The Olympic dream
While Carreira and Ponomarenko now can breathe a bit freer and focus solely on their training, as the deadline to obtain her citizenship grew evermore imminent, their anxiety likewise intensified.
“This summer, applying for citizenship, I was getting pretty stressed,” she said. “You actually have to sign up for the Olympics, and you need to give a passport. And obviously my passport wasn't approved.”
She will be able to update her application with her passport information, but it was a stark reminder that even if they did everything right to earn a berth on the U.S. Olympic team, they may have missed out on one very important component.
The America Dream
Carreira says she was honored to finally memorialize her status as an American athlete.
“It's really going to be an honor to represent the U.S. as an American,” she said. “I think with the driving and all the sacrifices I'm making, it's made becoming American even more meaningful. I really feel like it's my home here. I've lived in America more than half my life at this point. Going to a competition being American is going to feel so special."