Univision
Fecha: 11/03/2011
Hay 5 mil niños en cuidado temporal tras quedar sin sus padres, reveló estudio
La intersección entre el proceso federal de deportación de inmigrantes y el sistema local de bienestar infantil está llevando a situaciones desastrosas, en las que padres detenidos o deportados terminan perdiendo la custodia de sus hijos porque no pueden asistir a las audiencias ni cumplir con los requisitos necesarios para recuperarlos.
Un estudio nacional sin precedentes develado el miércoles estimó que hay más de 5 mil niños en el sistema de cuidado temporal cuyos padres están detenidos por inmigración o fueron deportados a su país de origen, sin que estos hayan podido hacer nada para recuperar a sus hijos.
"Cuando por alguna razón padres e hijos se ven separados y los hijos pasan al cuidado del estado, la mayoría de las veces se logra una reunificación. Pero en el caso de los padres inmigrantes deportables, las barreras son increíblemente más elevadas", explicó Seth Freed Wessler, autor del estudio Familias Destrozadas, del Centro de Investigaciones Aplicadas (ARC).
Familias destruidas
Este problema se hace más acuciante en los estados y localidades cuyos departamentos de policía tienen acuerdos con el gobierno federal para asistir en labores de deportación, ya que tienden a realizar más deportaciones de personas con tiempo en el país y lazos familiares.
Como esa colaboración y la cantidad de deportaciones han venido aumentando, también son más los padres que han terminado por perder la custodia de sus hijos, sea temporal o permanentemente.
Según el estimado de ARC, 46 mil madres o padres de ciudadanos estadounidenses fueron deportados en los primeros meses de 2011.
En cualquier caso, las decisiones son difíciles, pero más aún cuando los niños caen en la custodia de autoridades de bienestar infantil.
Separaciones forzadas
El estudio identificó casos de este tipo de separación forzada en al menos 22 estados. En Los Ángeles, en el período estudiado, se encontró que hay 1,178 niños en hogares de cuidado temporal, con padres deportados o en proceso de deportación, un 6.2% del total.
"Cuando los niños pasan a la custodia del estado, es común en casos de detenidos por ICE que los padres pierdan todo contacto con sus hijos. A menudo los mueven a centros de detención muy alejados de su lugar previo de residencia y no les permiten asistir a las audiencias en la corte infantil", dijo Rinku Sen, directora ejecutiva de ARC.
En muchas ocasiones, los padres son inmigrantes que no han cometido ningún delito, simplemente caen en manos de las autoridades por manejar sin licencia, estar en el lugar equivocado y hasta ser víctimas de violencia doméstica.
Doble castigo
Ese fue el caso de Hilaria, una mujer en Phonix, cuya historia está explicada con detalle en el reporte. Hilaria fue arrestada tras un incidente de violencia doméstica mientras trataba de defenderse de una paliza de su marido, que la acusó a ella del ataque. Por ser indocumentada, Hilaria terminó detenida por inmigración.
Los niños quedaron con él, hasta que algún tiempo después las autoridades de bienestar infantil se dieron cuenta de que él abusaba de las drogas y se llevaron a los pequeños.
Hilaria sigue detenida y sus hijos en foster care. Cuando fue entrevistada en un centro de detención por los investigadores del estudio, la mujer declaró que "aguanté el abuso por mis hijos, pero ahora me los han robado".
Familias destruidas
Hay otros casos similares. Dos hermanas indocumentadas fueron arrestadas en Nuevo México y deportadas cuatro meses después. Ninguna de ellas tenía un delito en su haber y sin embargo sus tres hijos fueron colocados en cuidado temporal, donde permanecieron durante 14 meses hasta que gracias a la intervención del consulado mexicano pudieron reunirse en México.
No obstante, los casos con final feliz no son tan comunes, dijeron los investigadores. Las leyes actuales requieren detención obligatoria para la mayoría de los inmigrantes en proceso de deportación y no existe un mecanismo formal que permita a una persona detenida participar activamente del proceso que se inicia cuando los menores son puestos en custodia del estado.
Asimismo, el sistema de bienestar infantil no tiene mecanismos para actuar y, según las conclusiones del estudio, a menudo no tienen una idea clara de lo que está pasando y creen que por el hecho de estar detenidos, las personas deben ser delincuentes y, por tanto, la reunificación resulta menos deseable.
En los casos en los que los consulados de las personas deportables son contactadas y entran en acción, se observan mejores resultados, pero esto no ocurre sino en un puñado de lugares donde las autoridades del condado han buscado activamente esa relación.
Fustigan al gobierno
Los autores del estudio fustigaron a las autoridades de inmigración por lo que caracterizaron como indiferencia ante la situación de estas familias.
"ICE no siente que tenga ninguna responsabilidad por las vidas reales que la gente tenía antes de la detención", dijo Wessler. "No hacen prácticamente nada para facilitar el contacto de los detenidos con las autoridades de bienestar infantil".
Pero una portavoz de ICE negó las acusaciones.
"No hemos visto el contenido de este reporte, pero en realidad nuestro departamento hace lo posible para asegurar que los detenidos tienen la oportunidad de hacer las decisiones importantes respecto al cuidado y custodia de sus hijos", dijo Virginia Kice.
"De acuerdo con el memo de prioridades emitido en junio de 2010, ICE generalmente no arresta a individuos que son los principales custodios de menores, a menos que sean sujetos legalmente a la detención obligatoria por el riesgo de fuga o la severidad de su historia criminal".
Cifras escandalosas
El reporte de ARC, sin embargo, parece contradecir esta afirmación a cada paso.
"No me sorprende para nada ver estas cifras. Cuando deportas a más de un millón de personas hay padres y madres de niños ciudadanos... muchas veces se llevan a ambos, dejando a estos niños desprotegidos. En los viajes que he hecho por el país lo he visto en carne propia", dijo el congresista Luis Gutiérrez, al reaccionar ante el reporte.
“Cuando por alguna razón padres e hijos se ven separados y los hijos pasan al cuidado del estado, la mayoría de las veces se logra una reunificación. Pero en el caso de los padres inmigrantes deportables, las barreras son increíblemente más elevada”, agregó.
http://noticias.univision.com/inmigracion/noticias/article/2011-11-03/estudio-deportacion-padres
Showing posts with label Family Separation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family Separation. Show all posts
Friday, November 4, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Families fear U.S. will deport parents, leave kids home alone
Agence France-Presse
The Montreal Gazette
October 23, 2011
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Parents who entered the United States illegally so fear for their future in Alabama that many are drawing up legal custody papers in case they have to leave their children behind following deportation.
"They could just run us out of the country when we are out in the street with the kids," fretted Ruben, who asked that his family name not be used.
But "now I have found a job, and I have three kids to support. I can't just leave out of fear. We have to tough it out," the Mexican migrant said.
His answer: to spell out legally what happens with his kids if the worst happens to him and his wife, Marina.
A federal appeals court last week blocked provisions in the nation's toughest immigration law that required schools to check whether students were in the United States legally or not, and required immigrants to carry an alien registration card.
But it also backed new police powers for detaining anyone suspected of being illegal immigrants, as well as provisions making it illegal for undocumented immigrants to enter into business transactions.
Since Alabama's state law HB 56 took effect September 28, thousands of families have all but stampeded out of Alabama, social and humanitarian groups here said.
Still others have decided to stay and live in fear. They desperately strain to stay below the radar, for example buying more food less often so that they can leave home less often.
Ruben and Marina are among more than 500 families that sought out legal aid to set up power of attorney paperwork in case they should be whisked out of their children's lives.
U.S.-born children do not have to leave the country but parents being deported may have to decide if their kids should be left alone abroad.
"We like to go shopping together, the five of us. And it is far away. So (fearing that we might be caught and deported), we had a power of attorney drawn up," Marina said, adding hopefully: "God help us!"
Among the legal issues parents are scrambling to try to plan for: who will care for their children in case of an unwanted family separation, and who will care for homes they may have bought, the advocacy group Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama said.
The group said it had about 20 visits a day before the law was passed, and that the volume surged to 70-100 visits a day since it took effect.
Ruben works eight hours a day seven days a week taking care of a golf course for 7.60 dollars an hour. "We can't go back to Mexico because we are very poor there, and in most of the United States things are bad too, so for now, we have to stay here," explains Marina.
Miguel, a construction worker, said he was trying to arrange legally for his sister in a neighboring state to come collect to Alabama to get his children in case he is picked up and deported.
"I am having trouble sleeping, having nightmares about being caught and deported. And the worst thing is imagining what could happen to my kids," he said.
Vanessa Stevens, a spokewoman at HICA, said HB 56 "is making impossible the everyday life of immigrants . . . It is sad to say, but that's the goal of this law, they want immigrant out of here."
"Many people fled for fear and that is hurting our local economy and our reputation as a state in the country and in the world," Stevens said.
Nationwide, there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, most of them from Latin America and the largest group from neighboring Mexico.
The Pew Hispanic Center, the top U.S. institute for the study of the Hispanic community, estimates that in Alabama there are 130,000 undocumented immigrants.
Though Arizona proposed the first immigration law that criminalized undocumented aliens, its most controversial provisions, such as empowering the police to question a person's immigration status, were blocked by the courts.
But other states have followed suit with their own laws in defiance of Washington.
The legislation has not been without cost. In Georgia and Alabama, a shortage of workers has appeared in key sectors including agriculture as immigrants head for the borders.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/world/Families+fear+will+deport+parents+leave+kids+home+alone/5593724/story.html#ixzz1bdQiq7N2
The Montreal Gazette
October 23, 2011
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Parents who entered the United States illegally so fear for their future in Alabama that many are drawing up legal custody papers in case they have to leave their children behind following deportation.
"They could just run us out of the country when we are out in the street with the kids," fretted Ruben, who asked that his family name not be used.
But "now I have found a job, and I have three kids to support. I can't just leave out of fear. We have to tough it out," the Mexican migrant said.
His answer: to spell out legally what happens with his kids if the worst happens to him and his wife, Marina.
A federal appeals court last week blocked provisions in the nation's toughest immigration law that required schools to check whether students were in the United States legally or not, and required immigrants to carry an alien registration card.
But it also backed new police powers for detaining anyone suspected of being illegal immigrants, as well as provisions making it illegal for undocumented immigrants to enter into business transactions.
Since Alabama's state law HB 56 took effect September 28, thousands of families have all but stampeded out of Alabama, social and humanitarian groups here said.
Still others have decided to stay and live in fear. They desperately strain to stay below the radar, for example buying more food less often so that they can leave home less often.
Ruben and Marina are among more than 500 families that sought out legal aid to set up power of attorney paperwork in case they should be whisked out of their children's lives.
U.S.-born children do not have to leave the country but parents being deported may have to decide if their kids should be left alone abroad.
"We like to go shopping together, the five of us. And it is far away. So (fearing that we might be caught and deported), we had a power of attorney drawn up," Marina said, adding hopefully: "God help us!"
Among the legal issues parents are scrambling to try to plan for: who will care for their children in case of an unwanted family separation, and who will care for homes they may have bought, the advocacy group Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama said.
The group said it had about 20 visits a day before the law was passed, and that the volume surged to 70-100 visits a day since it took effect.
Ruben works eight hours a day seven days a week taking care of a golf course for 7.60 dollars an hour. "We can't go back to Mexico because we are very poor there, and in most of the United States things are bad too, so for now, we have to stay here," explains Marina.
Miguel, a construction worker, said he was trying to arrange legally for his sister in a neighboring state to come collect to Alabama to get his children in case he is picked up and deported.
"I am having trouble sleeping, having nightmares about being caught and deported. And the worst thing is imagining what could happen to my kids," he said.
Vanessa Stevens, a spokewoman at HICA, said HB 56 "is making impossible the everyday life of immigrants . . . It is sad to say, but that's the goal of this law, they want immigrant out of here."
"Many people fled for fear and that is hurting our local economy and our reputation as a state in the country and in the world," Stevens said.
Nationwide, there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, most of them from Latin America and the largest group from neighboring Mexico.
The Pew Hispanic Center, the top U.S. institute for the study of the Hispanic community, estimates that in Alabama there are 130,000 undocumented immigrants.
Though Arizona proposed the first immigration law that criminalized undocumented aliens, its most controversial provisions, such as empowering the police to question a person's immigration status, were blocked by the courts.
But other states have followed suit with their own laws in defiance of Washington.
The legislation has not been without cost. In Georgia and Alabama, a shortage of workers has appeared in key sectors including agriculture as immigrants head for the borders.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/world/Families+fear+will+deport+parents+leave+kids+home+alone/5593724/story.html#ixzz1bdQiq7N2
Monday, October 17, 2011
Coupeville mother of 5 seeks mercy for detained husband
By Jessie Stensland
WHIDBEY NEWS TIMES
October 16, 2011
By all accounts, Jaime Villicana-Campos is a wonderful husband and a beloved father to his children.
He held two physically demanding jobs and worked seven days a week to support his large family. He somehow still made time to spend with his little girls, especially 6-year-old Angelica who suffers from epilepsy. She is particularly close to her doting father and is known in the family as "Daddy's girl."
But because of the nation's sometimes vexing immigration laws, Villicana-Campos is sitting in a Tacoma federal detention facility. He was nabbed by immigration officials in June, a month before his fifth daughter was born. He still hasn't met baby Sophia.
In the meantime, his wife and five daughters languish without him in a Central Whidbey home that his brother-in-law rented for the family. His wife, Terra Villicana, is fighting for his freedom, but suffers from depression that's so debilitating that she had to be temporarily admitted to a psychiatric unit. Tears constantly stream down her cheeks as she discusses the untenable situation.
"This is beyond pain. This is torture," Terra said. "The hardest thing is to hear the kids cry at night. They just want their dad."
Jaime Villicana-Campos is married to an American citizen and has five children born in America. He has lived in America since he was 14. He worked hard and paid taxes. But still, he faces prison followed by deportation to Mexico because of a mistake he made in 1997.
Under federal law, Villicana-Campos can't become a citizen because he was convicted of a felony. His wife explains that he was hanging out with the wrong crowd when he was a young man in Skagit County. He drove some friends to what turned out to be a drug deal and was arrested by the police.
Villicana-Campos, who didn't speak English very well at the time, got some poor advice from an attorney. Terra said he was advised to plead guilty with the promise that he'd be sentenced to work ethics camp and then would be able to return home.
But instead, the Skagit County judge sentenced him to two years in prison. After he got out, he was deported to Mexico. As Terra explained, the other members of Villicana-Campos' family had become American citizens, but for some reason he was never naturalized.
Terra admits that her husband sneaked into the country twice. The first time was when he was 14. Then he again entered illegally after he was deported.
In a statement on the case, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement corroborates the details of Villicana-Campos' story, but adds that he was convicted of trafficking cocaine and methamphetamine. He was deported to Mexico "based on that aggravated felony conviction," according to ICE.
After returning to Skagit County, Villicana-Campos met Terra, who had grown up in Coupeville. They fell in love and were married in 1999. They had their first daughter, Jasmine, in 2001.
Jasmine now goes to Coupeville schools. Like her younger sisters, she's taken her father's absence hard and often cries herself to sleep, sometimes grasping her father's shirt.
"All I want is for my daddy to be home and for him to have his papers," she said. "If I could have that, I would be the happiest girl alive."
Terra said Angelica's seizures had been under control, but the stress of her father's absence has caused them to flare up. The doctors have had to increase her medication.
As Terra explained, immigration agents came to get Villicana-Campos at their home in Mount Vernon on June 23. They pounded on the door and claimed they were police officers. She answered the door and questioned them. They eventually admitted they were from immigration, but promised they just wanted to talk to her husband for a few minutes and then would leave. Terra was eight-months pregnant at the time and begged Villicana-Campos to hide, but he wanted to take responsibility for his actions. They took him away in handcuffs.
About a month later, July 28, Terra had her fifth baby while Villicana-Campos sat in federal detention. She said it's impossible to describe how difficult it was to have the little girl without her husband there.
"I'm miserable every day," she said. "It's so difficult to answer these kids' questions."
The statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, however, explains the government's case.
"On July 6, Mr. Villicana-Campos was released to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after he was criminally charged with illegally re-entering the United States after deportation, a felony charge that carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison. Mr. Villacana-Campos remains in U.S. Marshals' custody at this time as he awaits sentencing following his conviction on the felony immigration charge," according to the statement.
While the family waits for answers, Terra has been fighting to bring her husband home. She's contacted attorneys, lawmakers, a civil rights group and even the White House. She's currently working with Sen. Patty Murray's office in hopes of helping her husband's case.
In addition, she's collected testimonials from people who know her husband. At the time of his arrest, he was a manager of a horse farm and also worked at a mobile home park for seniors. Terra said he was loved by the residents and was known for helping folks on his own time.
"They were crying because they miss him so much," she said.
Another one of her allies is Dr. Robert Prins, a well-known and respected OB/GYN physician in Anacortes. He delivered all five of her girls and has offered to help the family in any way he can. He described Villicana-Campos as "a fine father."
"I have known Terra now as you can see for over 10 years and she is a delightful young lady," Prins wrote in a letter of support. "She has taken great care of her children, loves her husband and has been an asset to our community and it is a real tragedy that immigration has what I would consider to be blinders on with regards to the circumstances here. I fully understand the issues of illegal immigration and am in agreement with the general attitude and approach, but this seems like a very exceptional circumstance and those of us in the community who know and love Terra, would very much like to see this resolved in her favor."
While immigration laws are rigid, there is some hope for Villicana-Campos. His fate is largely in the hands of judges. His attorney has petitioned the Skagit County Superior Court to have the conviction vacated because he wasn't properly advised about deportation. If the attorney is successful, it would open up a road to citizenship.
Villicana-Campos already pleaded guilty in federal court to entering the country illegally. His sentencing hearing is set for Dec. 8. He's facing a maximum of 20 years in prison, but Terra prays the judge will recognize the exceptional circumstances and have mercy. She plans to bring Sophia to meet her father.
"These children just need their dad," she said. "He's an amazing, wonderful, wonderful dad and it just doesn't make any sense that they are keeping him away from his kids."
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/sound/article/Coupeville-mother-of-5-seeks-mercy-for-detained-2221500.php#ixzz1bdYp7iVa
WHIDBEY NEWS TIMES
October 16, 2011
By all accounts, Jaime Villicana-Campos is a wonderful husband and a beloved father to his children.
He held two physically demanding jobs and worked seven days a week to support his large family. He somehow still made time to spend with his little girls, especially 6-year-old Angelica who suffers from epilepsy. She is particularly close to her doting father and is known in the family as "Daddy's girl."
But because of the nation's sometimes vexing immigration laws, Villicana-Campos is sitting in a Tacoma federal detention facility. He was nabbed by immigration officials in June, a month before his fifth daughter was born. He still hasn't met baby Sophia.
In the meantime, his wife and five daughters languish without him in a Central Whidbey home that his brother-in-law rented for the family. His wife, Terra Villicana, is fighting for his freedom, but suffers from depression that's so debilitating that she had to be temporarily admitted to a psychiatric unit. Tears constantly stream down her cheeks as she discusses the untenable situation.
"This is beyond pain. This is torture," Terra said. "The hardest thing is to hear the kids cry at night. They just want their dad."
Jaime Villicana-Campos is married to an American citizen and has five children born in America. He has lived in America since he was 14. He worked hard and paid taxes. But still, he faces prison followed by deportation to Mexico because of a mistake he made in 1997.
Under federal law, Villicana-Campos can't become a citizen because he was convicted of a felony. His wife explains that he was hanging out with the wrong crowd when he was a young man in Skagit County. He drove some friends to what turned out to be a drug deal and was arrested by the police.
Villicana-Campos, who didn't speak English very well at the time, got some poor advice from an attorney. Terra said he was advised to plead guilty with the promise that he'd be sentenced to work ethics camp and then would be able to return home.
But instead, the Skagit County judge sentenced him to two years in prison. After he got out, he was deported to Mexico. As Terra explained, the other members of Villicana-Campos' family had become American citizens, but for some reason he was never naturalized.
Terra admits that her husband sneaked into the country twice. The first time was when he was 14. Then he again entered illegally after he was deported.
In a statement on the case, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement corroborates the details of Villicana-Campos' story, but adds that he was convicted of trafficking cocaine and methamphetamine. He was deported to Mexico "based on that aggravated felony conviction," according to ICE.
After returning to Skagit County, Villicana-Campos met Terra, who had grown up in Coupeville. They fell in love and were married in 1999. They had their first daughter, Jasmine, in 2001.
Jasmine now goes to Coupeville schools. Like her younger sisters, she's taken her father's absence hard and often cries herself to sleep, sometimes grasping her father's shirt.
"All I want is for my daddy to be home and for him to have his papers," she said. "If I could have that, I would be the happiest girl alive."
Terra said Angelica's seizures had been under control, but the stress of her father's absence has caused them to flare up. The doctors have had to increase her medication.
As Terra explained, immigration agents came to get Villicana-Campos at their home in Mount Vernon on June 23. They pounded on the door and claimed they were police officers. She answered the door and questioned them. They eventually admitted they were from immigration, but promised they just wanted to talk to her husband for a few minutes and then would leave. Terra was eight-months pregnant at the time and begged Villicana-Campos to hide, but he wanted to take responsibility for his actions. They took him away in handcuffs.
About a month later, July 28, Terra had her fifth baby while Villicana-Campos sat in federal detention. She said it's impossible to describe how difficult it was to have the little girl without her husband there.
"I'm miserable every day," she said. "It's so difficult to answer these kids' questions."
The statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, however, explains the government's case.
"On July 6, Mr. Villicana-Campos was released to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after he was criminally charged with illegally re-entering the United States after deportation, a felony charge that carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison. Mr. Villacana-Campos remains in U.S. Marshals' custody at this time as he awaits sentencing following his conviction on the felony immigration charge," according to the statement.
While the family waits for answers, Terra has been fighting to bring her husband home. She's contacted attorneys, lawmakers, a civil rights group and even the White House. She's currently working with Sen. Patty Murray's office in hopes of helping her husband's case.
In addition, she's collected testimonials from people who know her husband. At the time of his arrest, he was a manager of a horse farm and also worked at a mobile home park for seniors. Terra said he was loved by the residents and was known for helping folks on his own time.
"They were crying because they miss him so much," she said.
Another one of her allies is Dr. Robert Prins, a well-known and respected OB/GYN physician in Anacortes. He delivered all five of her girls and has offered to help the family in any way he can. He described Villicana-Campos as "a fine father."
"I have known Terra now as you can see for over 10 years and she is a delightful young lady," Prins wrote in a letter of support. "She has taken great care of her children, loves her husband and has been an asset to our community and it is a real tragedy that immigration has what I would consider to be blinders on with regards to the circumstances here. I fully understand the issues of illegal immigration and am in agreement with the general attitude and approach, but this seems like a very exceptional circumstance and those of us in the community who know and love Terra, would very much like to see this resolved in her favor."
While immigration laws are rigid, there is some hope for Villicana-Campos. His fate is largely in the hands of judges. His attorney has petitioned the Skagit County Superior Court to have the conviction vacated because he wasn't properly advised about deportation. If the attorney is successful, it would open up a road to citizenship.
Villicana-Campos already pleaded guilty in federal court to entering the country illegally. His sentencing hearing is set for Dec. 8. He's facing a maximum of 20 years in prison, but Terra prays the judge will recognize the exceptional circumstances and have mercy. She plans to bring Sophia to meet her father.
"These children just need their dad," she said. "He's an amazing, wonderful, wonderful dad and it just doesn't make any sense that they are keeping him away from his kids."
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/sound/article/Coupeville-mother-of-5-seeks-mercy-for-detained-2221500.php#ixzz1bdYp7iVa
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Latino dad of 2-year-old transplant patient faces deportation
EFE
September 26, 2011
Phoenix – In his two years of life, little Jesus Pereyra Jr. has faced some tough trials, first in surviving a heart transplant and now the possibility of being separated from his dad who could be deported.
The little boy, still convalescing, hangs onto his father's legs as if aware that he might soon be gone if forced to go back to his native Mexico.
Like many others, Jesus Pereyra Sr. crossed the Arizona desert on foot illegally in 2005 in a difficult five days's march through scorching heat in search of a better life.
"We had no water or food, they assaulted us and took everything we had, even our shoes," the 24-year-old Pereyra said in an interview with Efe.
With much effort and sacrifice, Pereyra settled in Phoenix and since then has worked in construction and installing swimming pools.
In 2007 he met a neighbor, 22-year-old Raquel Garcia, whom he later married.
Just when the undocumented immigrant thought he had it all, a family and a job, he was detained in a sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Pereyra was put in line for deportation in January 2010.
He didn't have the minimum 10 years living illegally in the United States required to appeal his deportation, nor could he regularize his immigration status even though his wife is a U.S. citizen.
Under current law, Pereyra must go back to Mexico for his application to be considered.
While Pereyra was dealing with ICE, his son was diagnosed with a rare condition in June 2010, for which only a heart transplant could save his life.
"I knew then I had to leave the country to obey the judge's order, but I couldn't leave my wife and, above all, my boy who was fighting for his life," Pereyra said.
After three months of waiting and in what the parents call a "miracle," little Jesus received the heart transplant he needed, but now his dad runs the risk of being arrested at any time and deported by ICE.
"It would be impossible for us to take him to Mexico," Raquel Garcia told Efe, because following the transplant their son needs constant medical checkups and the medication he will have to take all his life.
"My son could not get that kind of medical care in Mexico," his mother said, unable to keep back the tears.
Marina Alexandrovich, the immigration attorney representing Pereyra, told Efe that she is currently focused on trying to reopen the immigrant's case since his son's illness occurred after the immigration judge heard his case.
"I only want the chance to be with my family, with my son, to take care of him and work for them," Pereyra said.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/09/26/latino-dad-2-year-old-transplant-patient-faces-deportation/#ixzz1Zv3riTGm
September 26, 2011
Phoenix – In his two years of life, little Jesus Pereyra Jr. has faced some tough trials, first in surviving a heart transplant and now the possibility of being separated from his dad who could be deported.
The little boy, still convalescing, hangs onto his father's legs as if aware that he might soon be gone if forced to go back to his native Mexico.
Like many others, Jesus Pereyra Sr. crossed the Arizona desert on foot illegally in 2005 in a difficult five days's march through scorching heat in search of a better life.
"We had no water or food, they assaulted us and took everything we had, even our shoes," the 24-year-old Pereyra said in an interview with Efe.
With much effort and sacrifice, Pereyra settled in Phoenix and since then has worked in construction and installing swimming pools.
In 2007 he met a neighbor, 22-year-old Raquel Garcia, whom he later married.
Just when the undocumented immigrant thought he had it all, a family and a job, he was detained in a sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Pereyra was put in line for deportation in January 2010.
He didn't have the minimum 10 years living illegally in the United States required to appeal his deportation, nor could he regularize his immigration status even though his wife is a U.S. citizen.
Under current law, Pereyra must go back to Mexico for his application to be considered.
While Pereyra was dealing with ICE, his son was diagnosed with a rare condition in June 2010, for which only a heart transplant could save his life.
"I knew then I had to leave the country to obey the judge's order, but I couldn't leave my wife and, above all, my boy who was fighting for his life," Pereyra said.
After three months of waiting and in what the parents call a "miracle," little Jesus received the heart transplant he needed, but now his dad runs the risk of being arrested at any time and deported by ICE.
"It would be impossible for us to take him to Mexico," Raquel Garcia told Efe, because following the transplant their son needs constant medical checkups and the medication he will have to take all his life.
"My son could not get that kind of medical care in Mexico," his mother said, unable to keep back the tears.
Marina Alexandrovich, the immigration attorney representing Pereyra, told Efe that she is currently focused on trying to reopen the immigrant's case since his son's illness occurred after the immigration judge heard his case.
"I only want the chance to be with my family, with my son, to take care of him and work for them," Pereyra said.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/09/26/latino-dad-2-year-old-transplant-patient-faces-deportation/#ixzz1Zv3riTGm
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Paola Ortiz deportation: A Canadian disgrace
Despite public outcry, officials turn blind eye to danger mother of two faces from abusive ex in Mexico
By Isabel Macdonald
Coop média de Montréal
September 24, 2011
On Friday, Sept. 23, Canada deported Paola Ortiz, the mom of two Canadian citizen kids, aged 2 and 4, to Mexico, a country she fled in 2006 to escape sexual abuse and domestic violence at the hands of her then-financé, a federal Mexican police officer.
Since last week, Paola’s case has gathered widespread support, particularly across Quebec, where she had been granted residency. More than 25 groups answered a call from immigrant rights group Solidarity Across Borders (SAB), and joined forces in calling on federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Security Minister Vic Toews to intervene to stop the deportation of the Montreal mom. The Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ) issued a statement pointing out that it was “totally delusional” to think Paola “would be protected by the Mexican police authorities once she is returned to Mexico.” The deportation was also denounced publicly by Québec Solidaire and by a near-unanimous vote by the Parti Québecois (the official opposition party in the Quebec parliament), with the péquiste spokesperson on immigration opposing the deportation as inhumane. The immigration critic also denounced the ruling Quebec Liberal’s silence on the issue and urged the provincial government to “intervene energetically” on the issue.
In the federal House of Commons, the Bloc Québécois called for federal intervention and the Member of Parliament representing Paola’s riding in Pointe St. Charles, Montreal, the NDP’s Tyrone Benston, also joined more than 200 of Paola’s neighbours and community members in calling on Kenney to stop the deportation.
Quebec’s former immigration minister, André Boulerice, publicly denounced the silence of the Quebec Liberals, as well as the role of the Harper administration (an “espèce de Tea Party,” as he called the federal authorities responsible for allowing the deportation to go forward).
In the context of this fast-growing opposition to Paola’s expulsion, it seemed possible to hope that sanity might prevail in Canadian immigration, and the Montreal mom be allowed to stay. Particularly given that less than two years ago, a Mexican woman who’d been refused asylum and deported by Canada was murdered by the assailants she’d tried to escape in her efforts to flee to Canada. And on Sept. 22, a family that had sought asylum but been rejected by Canada returned to the country, after their deportation was overturned, drawing attention to the fact that decisions in refugee cases can be flawed.
Paola was originally slated to be deported on Tuesday, Sept. 20. Following orders from Canadian immigration authorities, she presented herself at Trudeau airport, with her luggage. But her deportation was narrowly averted when airport medical staff intervened. Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in the wake of the domestic violence she survived, Paola suddenly began shaking, and had difficulty breathing as she waited for Canadian Boarder Services Agency (CBSA) agents to march her onto a Mexico-bound plane. She was hospitalized later that morning, but Canadian authorities instructed her to present herself to Immigration Canada to receive a new deportation date.
On Wednesday morning, Paola’s friends and supporters gathered outside the towering grey building at 1010 Rue St. Antoine West that houses the Citizenship and Immigration Canada offices in downtown Montreal, in a show of support as she presented herself to the immigration authorities.
“There’s no guarantee she’ll come out,” a cop patrolling the demonstration on the sidewalk outside told Paola’s supporters, explaining that this was what Immigration security personnel had told the Montreal police. Paola had recently been incarcerated for a week in an immigrant detention centre in Laval, so it was conceivable that immigration authorities would simply throw her back into a cell at the immigrant jail to await her deportation.
When Paola stepped out of the federal building around noon, her supporters breathed a collective sigh of relief. Until they learned that Canada had ordered her deported in less than 48 hours.
On the night of Thursday, September 22, a vigil was held blocks from the federal immigration offices. Dozens of Paola’s friends and supporters turned out for the all-night event, which was organized by Dignidad Migrante. Attendees included the former immigration minister André Boulerice, as well as the péquiste immigration spokesperson Yves-François Blanchet.
In the centre of the gathering, a sign, lit up by a ring of candles that also formed a heart, proclaimed “Basta de deportaciones” (Stop Deportations!).
The following morning at 5:30 am, several of the supporters who’d kept the vigil, as well as a handful of the journalists who’d been doggedly following Paola’s story, congregated in front of the grey building on Rue St. Antoine.
Canada’s unsuccessful earlier efforts to deport Paola had become a major news story in the Montreal media, with TV, radio and print journalists turning up at Trudeau airport along with Paola’s friends and supporters. This time, though, Paola was to be deported in secret. She had been ordered to appear on Friday not at the airport, where she would again be able to be with her friends, family and supporters, and speak to media, but at the immigration offices at 1010 Rue St. Antoine. A journalist familiar with deportation proceedings predicted that the authorities would transport her directly to an RCMP security gate at Trudeau airport, keeping her out of any public spaces in the airport where she would have access to media.
At 6 am on September 23, two white men wearing white uniforms appeared at the glass doors of the office building at 1010 St. Antoine. Her friends asked if someone could accompany her for support. Without even looking up, the men in uniform brusquely refused. “No,” one of them said firmly, as the glass doors slammed shut behind Paola.
Half a dozen local journalists, along with her friends and supporters, were left to stare at the closed glass doors from the sidewalk, as Paola was whisked into the bowels of the grey building.
She had had to leave behind her two young children--one of whom is autistic, and the other of whom has hearing difficulties. She worried about her kids’ safety (as well as her own) in Mexico, and also wanted the youngsters to continue receiving the special medical services they depend on in Canada, which would not be accessible to them in her home country.
“What did she tell her kids?” one journalist asked, several minutes after Paola disappeared with the men in uniform.
But the question might be better directed at Canada.
How on earth will we explain to those two young Canadian kids why our government has robbed them of their mother?
Follow Isabel Macdonald on twitter at @IsabelMacdo
http://montreal.mediacoop.ca/story/paola-ortiz-deportation-canadian-disgrace/8216
By Isabel Macdonald
Coop média de Montréal
September 24, 2011
On Friday, Sept. 23, Canada deported Paola Ortiz, the mom of two Canadian citizen kids, aged 2 and 4, to Mexico, a country she fled in 2006 to escape sexual abuse and domestic violence at the hands of her then-financé, a federal Mexican police officer.
Since last week, Paola’s case has gathered widespread support, particularly across Quebec, where she had been granted residency. More than 25 groups answered a call from immigrant rights group Solidarity Across Borders (SAB), and joined forces in calling on federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Security Minister Vic Toews to intervene to stop the deportation of the Montreal mom. The Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ) issued a statement pointing out that it was “totally delusional” to think Paola “would be protected by the Mexican police authorities once she is returned to Mexico.” The deportation was also denounced publicly by Québec Solidaire and by a near-unanimous vote by the Parti Québecois (the official opposition party in the Quebec parliament), with the péquiste spokesperson on immigration opposing the deportation as inhumane. The immigration critic also denounced the ruling Quebec Liberal’s silence on the issue and urged the provincial government to “intervene energetically” on the issue.
In the federal House of Commons, the Bloc Québécois called for federal intervention and the Member of Parliament representing Paola’s riding in Pointe St. Charles, Montreal, the NDP’s Tyrone Benston, also joined more than 200 of Paola’s neighbours and community members in calling on Kenney to stop the deportation.
Quebec’s former immigration minister, André Boulerice, publicly denounced the silence of the Quebec Liberals, as well as the role of the Harper administration (an “espèce de Tea Party,” as he called the federal authorities responsible for allowing the deportation to go forward).
In the context of this fast-growing opposition to Paola’s expulsion, it seemed possible to hope that sanity might prevail in Canadian immigration, and the Montreal mom be allowed to stay. Particularly given that less than two years ago, a Mexican woman who’d been refused asylum and deported by Canada was murdered by the assailants she’d tried to escape in her efforts to flee to Canada. And on Sept. 22, a family that had sought asylum but been rejected by Canada returned to the country, after their deportation was overturned, drawing attention to the fact that decisions in refugee cases can be flawed.
Paola was originally slated to be deported on Tuesday, Sept. 20. Following orders from Canadian immigration authorities, she presented herself at Trudeau airport, with her luggage. But her deportation was narrowly averted when airport medical staff intervened. Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in the wake of the domestic violence she survived, Paola suddenly began shaking, and had difficulty breathing as she waited for Canadian Boarder Services Agency (CBSA) agents to march her onto a Mexico-bound plane. She was hospitalized later that morning, but Canadian authorities instructed her to present herself to Immigration Canada to receive a new deportation date.
On Wednesday morning, Paola’s friends and supporters gathered outside the towering grey building at 1010 Rue St. Antoine West that houses the Citizenship and Immigration Canada offices in downtown Montreal, in a show of support as she presented herself to the immigration authorities.
“There’s no guarantee she’ll come out,” a cop patrolling the demonstration on the sidewalk outside told Paola’s supporters, explaining that this was what Immigration security personnel had told the Montreal police. Paola had recently been incarcerated for a week in an immigrant detention centre in Laval, so it was conceivable that immigration authorities would simply throw her back into a cell at the immigrant jail to await her deportation.
When Paola stepped out of the federal building around noon, her supporters breathed a collective sigh of relief. Until they learned that Canada had ordered her deported in less than 48 hours.
On the night of Thursday, September 22, a vigil was held blocks from the federal immigration offices. Dozens of Paola’s friends and supporters turned out for the all-night event, which was organized by Dignidad Migrante. Attendees included the former immigration minister André Boulerice, as well as the péquiste immigration spokesperson Yves-François Blanchet.
In the centre of the gathering, a sign, lit up by a ring of candles that also formed a heart, proclaimed “Basta de deportaciones” (Stop Deportations!).
The following morning at 5:30 am, several of the supporters who’d kept the vigil, as well as a handful of the journalists who’d been doggedly following Paola’s story, congregated in front of the grey building on Rue St. Antoine.
Canada’s unsuccessful earlier efforts to deport Paola had become a major news story in the Montreal media, with TV, radio and print journalists turning up at Trudeau airport along with Paola’s friends and supporters. This time, though, Paola was to be deported in secret. She had been ordered to appear on Friday not at the airport, where she would again be able to be with her friends, family and supporters, and speak to media, but at the immigration offices at 1010 Rue St. Antoine. A journalist familiar with deportation proceedings predicted that the authorities would transport her directly to an RCMP security gate at Trudeau airport, keeping her out of any public spaces in the airport where she would have access to media.
At 6 am on September 23, two white men wearing white uniforms appeared at the glass doors of the office building at 1010 St. Antoine. Her friends asked if someone could accompany her for support. Without even looking up, the men in uniform brusquely refused. “No,” one of them said firmly, as the glass doors slammed shut behind Paola.
Half a dozen local journalists, along with her friends and supporters, were left to stare at the closed glass doors from the sidewalk, as Paola was whisked into the bowels of the grey building.
She had had to leave behind her two young children--one of whom is autistic, and the other of whom has hearing difficulties. She worried about her kids’ safety (as well as her own) in Mexico, and also wanted the youngsters to continue receiving the special medical services they depend on in Canada, which would not be accessible to them in her home country.
“What did she tell her kids?” one journalist asked, several minutes after Paola disappeared with the men in uniform.
But the question might be better directed at Canada.
How on earth will we explain to those two young Canadian kids why our government has robbed them of their mother?
Follow Isabel Macdonald on twitter at @IsabelMacdo
http://montreal.mediacoop.ca/story/paola-ortiz-deportation-canadian-disgrace/8216
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Stranded Student Arms Himself With an Education After Parents' Deportation
By Tania Luviano
Fox News Latino
July 13, 2011
Graduating from high school marks the beginning of a new era for any teenager, but for Marcos Muñoz, the diploma is renewed hope for him and his family.
Muñoz, a San Diego, California, resident, was just 14-years-old when his parents were deported to Mexico, abruptly forcing him to take on the role as father to his little sister.
“Our lives changed in a second. My older sister and I had to learn how to run the house and take care of our 10-year-old sister,” he said.
Muñoz’s priorities changed in a flash. Somewhere along the line, schoolyard drama and popular girls were no match to newfound concerns over economic stresses in his efforts to help his older sister bring money home.
“My parents were hardly making any money in Tijuana, Mexico, and we had to pay the mortgage, electricity, buy food, everything,” he said.
Muñoz made the decision to transfer to a charter school, where he was be able to study on his own time and allowed him to work as much as he wanted to.
And since Muñoz, who wasn't even 16-years-old and therefore not particularly attractive to potential employers, would take any job.
“I started working on a taco shop close to my house. The hours were the worst and I would do all sorts of things, but on top of that I was only making a couple hundred dollars, so it wasn’t enough,” he said.
Tired of not making ends meet, Muñoz got a full time job at a tennis store. His days were long, he would get up at dawn to catch the bus at 6 a.m. to the trolley, and arrive to school two hours later. Already tired, he would continue to his afternoon duties, which included more buses and trains to be able to get to work.
“If you don’t work hard, you’re nobody in this country,” said Muñoz, whose will power would keep him going until midnight, the only time he had to do his homework.
The thought of quitting never crossed Munoz's mind, however, and not working was never an option for him, so dropping-out of school became more and more enticing.
“I wasn’t eating or sleeping well and still my sister and I couldn’t pay the bills. I felt all my hard work was in vain," Muñoz said.
But Muñoz refused to let himself down, and most importantly, he didn’t want to disappoint his parents, who are his biggest motivation.
“They came to the U.S. for the only purpose of providing us a better education, and that’s what I was determined to do,” he said.
His determination and hard work paid off this past June when Muñoz was able to finish high school in just two years with a 3.5 grade point average.
“We are very proud of our son and we know he’ll do bigger things,” said Abel and Zulma Muñoz, who weren’t able to attend their son’s graduation because of their immigration status, but celebrated their son’s accomplishment with the whole family at their home in Tijuana.
Thirty-three percent of all Latinos and Latinas drop out of school in the United States without graduating. Muñoz says many of his friends are in the same boat.
“They are making a big mistake because in this country you are nobody if you don’t go to school," he said. "You can’t even work at McDonald’s if you don’t finish high school.”
But this strong-minded 17-year-old has a bigger dream in mind: he wants to become an odontologist. And he’s in the process of applying for as many scholarships as he can to be able to attend community college in the fall and, in the future, transfer to San Diego State University.
Beyond his education aspirations, Muñoz wants to inspire other Latinos to finish high school and get a college degree. If he can do it, he humbly says, anyone can.
“I want to be an example to other young Latinos, who like me have to work and go to school at the same time," Muñoz said. "And I know they must feel discouraged, but I want to tell them, you can do it!”
And if you ask him who his mentor and most admired role model is, there’s only one name.
“My sister Leslie," he said. "She taught me never to give up and always fight for what you want.”
The drive to success must run in the Muñoz‘s blood. Just like her brother, Leslie, 21, graduated from high school three years ago and currently has two jobs. Additionally, she attends Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California, where she's studying to become an immigration lawyer.
“My parents taught me to always value what you have and never give up in your dreams, to always work hard because later in life it will pay off,” said Marcos.
Still, the family has hurdles to clear. Although, Muñoz works full time at a parking lot in San Ysidro, California, they were evicted from his home just last month.
Tough times lie ahead, indeed. But he says he’s ready for any challenge.
“For my parents and for myself," the teen said, "I will fight for a better future.”
Tania Luviano is a freelance contributor for Fox News Latino.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/community/2011/07/13/stranded-student-arms-himself-with-education-after-parents-deportation/#ixzz1SBVdfNrY
Fox News Latino
July 13, 2011
Graduating from high school marks the beginning of a new era for any teenager, but for Marcos Muñoz, the diploma is renewed hope for him and his family.
Muñoz, a San Diego, California, resident, was just 14-years-old when his parents were deported to Mexico, abruptly forcing him to take on the role as father to his little sister.
“Our lives changed in a second. My older sister and I had to learn how to run the house and take care of our 10-year-old sister,” he said.
Muñoz’s priorities changed in a flash. Somewhere along the line, schoolyard drama and popular girls were no match to newfound concerns over economic stresses in his efforts to help his older sister bring money home.
“My parents were hardly making any money in Tijuana, Mexico, and we had to pay the mortgage, electricity, buy food, everything,” he said.
Muñoz made the decision to transfer to a charter school, where he was be able to study on his own time and allowed him to work as much as he wanted to.
And since Muñoz, who wasn't even 16-years-old and therefore not particularly attractive to potential employers, would take any job.
“I started working on a taco shop close to my house. The hours were the worst and I would do all sorts of things, but on top of that I was only making a couple hundred dollars, so it wasn’t enough,” he said.
Tired of not making ends meet, Muñoz got a full time job at a tennis store. His days were long, he would get up at dawn to catch the bus at 6 a.m. to the trolley, and arrive to school two hours later. Already tired, he would continue to his afternoon duties, which included more buses and trains to be able to get to work.
“If you don’t work hard, you’re nobody in this country,” said Muñoz, whose will power would keep him going until midnight, the only time he had to do his homework.
The thought of quitting never crossed Munoz's mind, however, and not working was never an option for him, so dropping-out of school became more and more enticing.
“I wasn’t eating or sleeping well and still my sister and I couldn’t pay the bills. I felt all my hard work was in vain," Muñoz said.
But Muñoz refused to let himself down, and most importantly, he didn’t want to disappoint his parents, who are his biggest motivation.
“They came to the U.S. for the only purpose of providing us a better education, and that’s what I was determined to do,” he said.
His determination and hard work paid off this past June when Muñoz was able to finish high school in just two years with a 3.5 grade point average.
“We are very proud of our son and we know he’ll do bigger things,” said Abel and Zulma Muñoz, who weren’t able to attend their son’s graduation because of their immigration status, but celebrated their son’s accomplishment with the whole family at their home in Tijuana.
Thirty-three percent of all Latinos and Latinas drop out of school in the United States without graduating. Muñoz says many of his friends are in the same boat.
“They are making a big mistake because in this country you are nobody if you don’t go to school," he said. "You can’t even work at McDonald’s if you don’t finish high school.”
But this strong-minded 17-year-old has a bigger dream in mind: he wants to become an odontologist. And he’s in the process of applying for as many scholarships as he can to be able to attend community college in the fall and, in the future, transfer to San Diego State University.
Beyond his education aspirations, Muñoz wants to inspire other Latinos to finish high school and get a college degree. If he can do it, he humbly says, anyone can.
“I want to be an example to other young Latinos, who like me have to work and go to school at the same time," Muñoz said. "And I know they must feel discouraged, but I want to tell them, you can do it!”
And if you ask him who his mentor and most admired role model is, there’s only one name.
“My sister Leslie," he said. "She taught me never to give up and always fight for what you want.”
The drive to success must run in the Muñoz‘s blood. Just like her brother, Leslie, 21, graduated from high school three years ago and currently has two jobs. Additionally, she attends Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California, where she's studying to become an immigration lawyer.
“My parents taught me to always value what you have and never give up in your dreams, to always work hard because later in life it will pay off,” said Marcos.
Still, the family has hurdles to clear. Although, Muñoz works full time at a parking lot in San Ysidro, California, they were evicted from his home just last month.
Tough times lie ahead, indeed. But he says he’s ready for any challenge.
“For my parents and for myself," the teen said, "I will fight for a better future.”
Tania Luviano is a freelance contributor for Fox News Latino.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/community/2011/07/13/stranded-student-arms-himself-with-education-after-parents-deportation/#ixzz1SBVdfNrY
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Immigration reform needed to stop heartbreaking separations
By Albor Ruiz
The New York Daily News
July 6th 2011
Few people would dispute that children, like everybody else in America, are entitled to the basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Yet, Wednesday, at the Peter Rodino Federal Building in Newark, dozens of children and families will gather to demonstrate and remind everyone about that fact.
The children, all of them born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, will give poignant first-hand testimony of the tragedy of being callously separated from their parents by our dysfunctional immigration laws.
They are American citizens, but today they will not speak about their pursuit of happiness. Instead, they will tell everyone about the fear, the sadness and the loneliness they suffer because of the deportation of their parents.
"My name is Jocelyn. The last time I saw my mother was on a Friday morning before heading to school. I have not seen her since that day, which was about three years ago."
Her mother was torn from her four children and her husband and deported to her native Mexico.
"I hope that she comes back to us or that we are able to see her again," said Jocelyn, a serious-looking 15-year old. "We need her and we miss her so much. I only wish to see her to tell her how much I love her."
Jocelyn's story, sad as it is, is far from unique.
The tragedy of citizen children whose parents have been taken from them by our broken immigration laws is one of enormous proportions.
Nearly one in 10 American families are of mixed immigration status, where at least one parent is a noncitizen, and at least one child a citizen, according to data compiled by the American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights.
An estimated 3.1 million U.S. citizen children have at least one parent who is undocumented, the data shows.
Many others have at least one parent who is a permanent legal resident who can be subject to deportation for minor legal infractions upon filing for a change of immigration status.
As a result, thousands of American children are separated from a parent. Between 1998 and 2007, at least 108,434 parents of U.S.-citizen children were deported.
Absurdly enough, immigration judges are not permitted to balance family unity against deportation requirements. As we have seen, in many cases this has led to one or both parents of child citizens being deported, parents who must choose between leaving the child behind in his or her own country or taking the child to a country foreign to him or her.
That's why these children will rally in Newark to demand their government pays attention to the devastating impact of deportation and enact fair and humane immigration policies that focus on keeping families together.
Certainly it's not too much to ask.
They and advocates will also visit their Congressional representatives today in their district offices. The purpose is to lobby them to co-sponsor the Child Citizen Protection Act recently reintroduced by Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.).
The act would allow immigration judges the discretion to take family situations into account during deportation proceedings.
"I have trouble believing that any American would support their government breaking up families or orphaning children," Serrano said. "We must bring our government's policies in line with our values, which do not include breaking families apart."
Yes, we must, for the sake of these children and for our own sake.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2011/07/06/2011-07-06_reform_immig_laws_to_end_separation_anxiety.html#ixzz1RSa9UJP1
The New York Daily News
July 6th 2011
Few people would dispute that children, like everybody else in America, are entitled to the basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Yet, Wednesday, at the Peter Rodino Federal Building in Newark, dozens of children and families will gather to demonstrate and remind everyone about that fact.
The children, all of them born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, will give poignant first-hand testimony of the tragedy of being callously separated from their parents by our dysfunctional immigration laws.
They are American citizens, but today they will not speak about their pursuit of happiness. Instead, they will tell everyone about the fear, the sadness and the loneliness they suffer because of the deportation of their parents.
"My name is Jocelyn. The last time I saw my mother was on a Friday morning before heading to school. I have not seen her since that day, which was about three years ago."
Her mother was torn from her four children and her husband and deported to her native Mexico.
"I hope that she comes back to us or that we are able to see her again," said Jocelyn, a serious-looking 15-year old. "We need her and we miss her so much. I only wish to see her to tell her how much I love her."
Jocelyn's story, sad as it is, is far from unique.
The tragedy of citizen children whose parents have been taken from them by our broken immigration laws is one of enormous proportions.
Nearly one in 10 American families are of mixed immigration status, where at least one parent is a noncitizen, and at least one child a citizen, according to data compiled by the American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights.
An estimated 3.1 million U.S. citizen children have at least one parent who is undocumented, the data shows.
Many others have at least one parent who is a permanent legal resident who can be subject to deportation for minor legal infractions upon filing for a change of immigration status.
As a result, thousands of American children are separated from a parent. Between 1998 and 2007, at least 108,434 parents of U.S.-citizen children were deported.
Absurdly enough, immigration judges are not permitted to balance family unity against deportation requirements. As we have seen, in many cases this has led to one or both parents of child citizens being deported, parents who must choose between leaving the child behind in his or her own country or taking the child to a country foreign to him or her.
That's why these children will rally in Newark to demand their government pays attention to the devastating impact of deportation and enact fair and humane immigration policies that focus on keeping families together.
Certainly it's not too much to ask.
They and advocates will also visit their Congressional representatives today in their district offices. The purpose is to lobby them to co-sponsor the Child Citizen Protection Act recently reintroduced by Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.).
The act would allow immigration judges the discretion to take family situations into account during deportation proceedings.
"I have trouble believing that any American would support their government breaking up families or orphaning children," Serrano said. "We must bring our government's policies in line with our values, which do not include breaking families apart."
Yes, we must, for the sake of these children and for our own sake.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2011/07/06/2011-07-06_reform_immig_laws_to_end_separation_anxiety.html#ixzz1RSa9UJP1
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Breaking: Immigrant To Be Deported After Father's Day Weekend Bust
By Tim Paynter
Technocrati
June 27, 2011
If undocumented immigrant Julio Alvarez had any idea waiting for his children on the Bouncy Castle ride at the Strawberry Days Festival in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, was going to end with his deportation, he never would have spent Father’s Day weekend, 2011 with his children. Garfield County Sheriff’s Deputies approached Julio and his brother Cesar, and asked them to follow the deputies to a mobile command station, leaving the Alvarez children unsupervised. The Sheriff’s Office suggests they were not at fault for leaving the kids alone because the Alvarez brothers “consented” to go with them.
When Julio’s wife, Lorenza, who was seven months pregnant, could not find either her children, or the brothers, she panicked and called carnival security, who likely knew exactly where Julio and Cesar were: Under arrest, having been handed over to ICE. The Sheriff's Office takes credit for calling the ambulance when Lorenza became distraught and had to be transported to the hospital.
News travels fast in the Latino community about ICE raids. News travels fast amongst English speakers in the small town of Glenwood Springs, famous for it’s hot springs, that the cops had chased a man through the carnival earlier in the day, presumably when he did not "consent" to their request to have a little chat. Neither immigrants, Latinos nor English speaking families wanted anything to to with law enforcement’s version of playing rough house in an amusement park, and the carnival went nearly vacant on Sunday. That is the day when merchants depend upon recouping their investment in the festival.
Small town sheriff’s departments rely on citizens to cooperate with law enforcement to do their job. As it turns out, the Garfield County Sheriff got the bright idea of inviting ICE to their carnival, a move which alienated everyone. Who wants to take their tiny tots and pregnant wives to places where aggressive police actions are in process?
According the the Sheriff’s Office, ICE got involved as part of a “Multi-Jurisdictional Gang Enforcement Operation” which took ICE away from protecting our borders and netted the huge sum of three individuals including Julio, who claims he is a father and not a member of a gang. His only crme was wearing a sports shirt and being Latino.
The Sheriff’s Office has responded, not by taking responsibility for it’s actions, but by blaming bad press on a local organizer, Brendan Greene of the Colorado Immigrants Rights Coalition (CIRC). Fearing no one, the Sheriff's press release stated Mr. Green's "Lies and false propaganda" had forced them to put out additional press releases . There was some confusion as to the day of the Alvarez arrest, as if that makes ICE operations in sensitive areas appropriate. Early press reports said the event happened on Father’s Day. The deputies robbed the Alvarez children of their daddy on Father’s Day by arresting Julio Saturday night of the Father’s Day weekend.
While the City of Glenwood Springs will have a tough time winning Latino participation in future Strawberry Days Festival events, despite the Festival having a 114 year history, the true loser is Julie Alvarez and his wife and children. The Garfield County Sheriff’s Department, again fearing no one, released the criminal background histories of the men they arrested. Cesar, whom they released after Lorenza Alvarez plead with officers to let him go since he was the sole caretaker of his two children, had no arrest record whatever.
Julio was the big catch between the two. According to the Sheriff's Office press release, this tough "gang member" was found guilty of driving while ability impaired (DWAI), a misdemeanor, in May of 2005, and reentry into the US to be with his children. That record puts Julio into the rapid repatriation process, meaning it takes little judicial oversight to put him on a bus. National Public Radio says he may be bounced back home before this article is printed.
Meanwhile, ICE and Sheriff Lou Vallario of Garfield County Claim victory, with the Sheriff insisting Alvarez’s single DWAI constitutes a serious criminal background history. The Sheriff can likely count out cooperation by the immigrant community he has terrorized for future help in trying to nab those less serious criminals like child molesters and drug dealers. The Alvarez Children might meet those kinds of predators one day, since they will be making their way in life with no father to guide them unless a miracle happens.
http://technorati.com/politics/article/breaking-immigrant-to-be-deported-after/page-2/#ixzz1Qxv8YkVC
Technocrati
June 27, 2011
If undocumented immigrant Julio Alvarez had any idea waiting for his children on the Bouncy Castle ride at the Strawberry Days Festival in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, was going to end with his deportation, he never would have spent Father’s Day weekend, 2011 with his children. Garfield County Sheriff’s Deputies approached Julio and his brother Cesar, and asked them to follow the deputies to a mobile command station, leaving the Alvarez children unsupervised. The Sheriff’s Office suggests they were not at fault for leaving the kids alone because the Alvarez brothers “consented” to go with them.
When Julio’s wife, Lorenza, who was seven months pregnant, could not find either her children, or the brothers, she panicked and called carnival security, who likely knew exactly where Julio and Cesar were: Under arrest, having been handed over to ICE. The Sheriff's Office takes credit for calling the ambulance when Lorenza became distraught and had to be transported to the hospital.
News travels fast in the Latino community about ICE raids. News travels fast amongst English speakers in the small town of Glenwood Springs, famous for it’s hot springs, that the cops had chased a man through the carnival earlier in the day, presumably when he did not "consent" to their request to have a little chat. Neither immigrants, Latinos nor English speaking families wanted anything to to with law enforcement’s version of playing rough house in an amusement park, and the carnival went nearly vacant on Sunday. That is the day when merchants depend upon recouping their investment in the festival.
Small town sheriff’s departments rely on citizens to cooperate with law enforcement to do their job. As it turns out, the Garfield County Sheriff got the bright idea of inviting ICE to their carnival, a move which alienated everyone. Who wants to take their tiny tots and pregnant wives to places where aggressive police actions are in process?
According the the Sheriff’s Office, ICE got involved as part of a “Multi-Jurisdictional Gang Enforcement Operation” which took ICE away from protecting our borders and netted the huge sum of three individuals including Julio, who claims he is a father and not a member of a gang. His only crme was wearing a sports shirt and being Latino.
The Sheriff’s Office has responded, not by taking responsibility for it’s actions, but by blaming bad press on a local organizer, Brendan Greene of the Colorado Immigrants Rights Coalition (CIRC). Fearing no one, the Sheriff's press release stated Mr. Green's "Lies and false propaganda" had forced them to put out additional press releases . There was some confusion as to the day of the Alvarez arrest, as if that makes ICE operations in sensitive areas appropriate. Early press reports said the event happened on Father’s Day. The deputies robbed the Alvarez children of their daddy on Father’s Day by arresting Julio Saturday night of the Father’s Day weekend.
While the City of Glenwood Springs will have a tough time winning Latino participation in future Strawberry Days Festival events, despite the Festival having a 114 year history, the true loser is Julie Alvarez and his wife and children. The Garfield County Sheriff’s Department, again fearing no one, released the criminal background histories of the men they arrested. Cesar, whom they released after Lorenza Alvarez plead with officers to let him go since he was the sole caretaker of his two children, had no arrest record whatever.
Julio was the big catch between the two. According to the Sheriff's Office press release, this tough "gang member" was found guilty of driving while ability impaired (DWAI), a misdemeanor, in May of 2005, and reentry into the US to be with his children. That record puts Julio into the rapid repatriation process, meaning it takes little judicial oversight to put him on a bus. National Public Radio says he may be bounced back home before this article is printed.
Meanwhile, ICE and Sheriff Lou Vallario of Garfield County Claim victory, with the Sheriff insisting Alvarez’s single DWAI constitutes a serious criminal background history. The Sheriff can likely count out cooperation by the immigrant community he has terrorized for future help in trying to nab those less serious criminals like child molesters and drug dealers. The Alvarez Children might meet those kinds of predators one day, since they will be making their way in life with no father to guide them unless a miracle happens.
http://technorati.com/politics/article/breaking-immigrant-to-be-deported-after/page-2/#ixzz1Qxv8YkVC
Friday, June 24, 2011
Classy: ICE raids Daddy's Day celebration
Posted by J. Adrian Stanley
The Colorado Springs Independent
Jun 22, 2011
While you have to keep in mind that the following release is from the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, an advocacy group for immigrants, it's still a jaw-dropper.
Nothing says American decency like arresting dads on Father's Day while they wait for their kids outside the bouncy castle. Or being so rude and crude to a pregnant lady that she has to be hospitalized for the stress.
Way to go, ICE. You make us proud.
The Colorado Springs Independent
Jun 22, 2011
While you have to keep in mind that the following release is from the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, an advocacy group for immigrants, it's still a jaw-dropper.
Nothing says American decency like arresting dads on Father's Day while they wait for their kids outside the bouncy castle. Or being so rude and crude to a pregnant lady that she has to be hospitalized for the stress.
Way to go, ICE. You make us proud.
ICE Raids the Strawberry Days Festival in Glenwood Springs, Two Fathers Detained While Waiting for Kids at the Bouncy Castle.http://www.csindy.com/IndyBlog/archives/2011/06/22/classy-ice-raids-daddys-day-celebration
Father’s Day Festival Raid by Local Law Enforcement and ICE Chills Relations with Latino/a and Immigrant Communities; Hurts Business and Safety.
Glenwood Springs, CO — The Strawberry Days Festival in Glenwood Springs is usually remembered as a treasured summer family event. This year, some children will also remember it as the day their family was ripped apart by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
As the Alvarez family was waiting for their children to come out of the Bouncy Castle, they were approached by a couple of Garfield County Sheriffs deputies who led the men away behind the carnival rides. While there, 2 plainclothes ICE agents approached, checked, and detained both men. Brothers Cesar and Julio Alvarez were then taken to an ICE van in the back of the fair, while their 4 children waited with their aunt and mother.
Lorenza Alvarez, Julio’s 7-months pregnant, US born wife, came looking for her husband and her brother-in-law and was treated poorly by agents as she explained that Cesar was the only caretaker of twin 11-year-old girls. Following an extended conversation, Cesar was released but Julio was taken away for processing at an ICE detention center in Glenwood Springs. The stress was almost too much for the pregnant Mrs. Alvarez, and she had to be taken to Valley View Hospital for emergency care.
Teaming up with the Garfield County Sheriff’s Department, undercover ICE agents conducted this dragnet operation at a family fair on Father’s Day, in violation of their own operating regulations — which call on them to “refrain from conducting enforcement actions or investigative activities at or near sensitive community locations, such as schools, places of worship... and venues generally where children and their families may be present.”
“This operation has revealed the Glenwood Springs ICE office to be a rogue agency operating outside of clear ICE directives to not conduct operations in “sensitive locations.” said Brendan Greene, Rocky Mountain Coordinator for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition,“ The fact that ICE and local police went after dads at the carnival on Father’s Day has been spreading throughout the immigrant community. This has the potential to negatively impact the success of Strawberry Days for years to come; not to mention erode what little trust remains between the immigrant community and the Garfield Co. Sheriff’s office.”
Adds Greene, “The local ICE office and the Garfield Co. Sheriff, by irresponsibly targeting the city’s flagship summer event, has hurt not only the City of Glenwood Springs, but also any other town in the Valley that is hoping to have a successful festival this summer. They should be ashamed of themselves for hurting the Valley’s businesses in this way.”
Local Spanish language DJ, Axel Contreras, heard about ICE’s presence at the carnival and went to investigate. “I have lived in the Valley and attended Strawberry Days for 20 years…in all of my years here, even when there were terrible storms, I have never seen Strawberry Days as empty as it was on Sunday after word had spread in the community that ICE was conducting an operation.”
This type of enforcement operation is often extremely disruptive to small towns like Glenwood Springs, where the Latino/a community has grown to become a major supporter of the Festival over the last decade.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
CIRC has been receiving complaints from the immigrant community about how the Garfield County Sheriffs Departments has been closely collaborating with, and in the case of last weekend’s raids at the carnival, taking the lead in ICE enforcement operations.
“I can’t think of a better way to ruin community policing than having local law enforcement troll for undocumented workers at community events like Strawberry Days.” said attorney Ted Hess, who is representing one of the detained men, “ This unholy alliance of ICE and local cops destroys trust between the community and the police.”
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Families of undocumented dairy workers advised; CIRC says immigration system broken
By DAN BARKER
The Fort Morgan Times
Posted: 06/06/2011
Although the Obama administration and the Office of Homeland Defense have said they will not make raids to catch immigrants unless they have committed serious crimes, such a raid did happened in Morgan County when 11 Hispanic dairy workers were arrested last week.
That was part of what was said during a couple of community meetings in Fort Morgan by representatives of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition as they came to talk to the wives and children of the men about what to expect from the court system and how to survive without their husbands' paychecks.
Those who showed up were predominantly women and children, and emotions were evident. Children wanted to talk about what was happening with their daddies and some women could barely restrain tears.
"(Children) cry," said one wife of a prisoner. "They don't understand. They just ask for their dad."
"There's a lot of fear right now," said Julie Gonzales, CIRC director of organization, adding that some families may be afraid to leave their homes.
In addition to a need for food and financial assistance, the women said their children could use some counseling from pastors or counselors.
People often do not understand how hard it is on the children when their parents are taken away, and they are not aware that the children have rights as American citizens, Gonzales said.
The timing of the raid was particularly hard on the families, because it was near the beginning of the month when rent and utility bills are due, she said.
CIRC is trying to set up a fund people can donate aid to, but that has not happened yet, Gonzales said.
In the meantime, those who want to help can take donations to the New Creation Church at 929 E. Burlington Ave., Gonzales said, also noting that other agencies like Caring Ministries might help out.
The families urgently need diapers, milk and infant formula, and can use other food. Donors can also contact Gonzales at 970-891-2712 or Damaris at 970-381-7123.
Eleven men were taken into custody following a grand jury indictment based on an inspection at the Wildcat Dairy in Morgan County. They were part of a group of 20 who were indicted.
Authorities claim a review of work eligibility forms found that the men were ineligible to work in the U.S.
Those who were arrested are charged with using forged social security and alien registration cards to gain employment.
They were advised of the charges and their rights Thursday morning in Morgan County District Court. All 11 face felony charges, including criminal impersonation, criminal impersonation to gain a benefit, possession of a forged social security card and possession of a forged alien registration card.
District Court Judge Douglas Vannoy advised the men that if convicted, these charges could carry penalties of as much as three years in prison, one year of mandatory parole and fines of up to $100,000. He set bail at $50,000 due to fears by the 13th Judicial District Attorney's Office that the men could flee the area.
Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Wiard told the judge that plea offers were ready to present to each of the defendants, but the District Attorney's Office is also ready for trial in each case.
CIRC Policy Director Hans Meyer, who is an attorney, cautioned families to look at any plea offers carefully before accepting them, because it could have consequences that last a lifetime.
This is a different situation than many earlier raids, because government officials are claiming they are criminals, not just undocumented workers, he said.
Immigration advocates are hearing contrasting messages from federal agencies, said CIRC Executive Director Julien Ross.
The Office of Homeland Security and the Obama administration have said they will not be pursuing everyday workers or raiding their homes if they have not committed serious crimes unrelated to immigration, he said.
These men face severe charges and exaggerated bond, Ross said.
Bonds of $50,000 seem to compare their actions to murder or kidnapping, which is unjust, Meyer said.
Families and friends know the arrested men are not criminals, that they are committed to supporting their families and are not flight risks, Ross said.
In conducting individual interviews to help counsel families, Meyer said he did not think any of the men had committed any serious crimes or intended any harm to anyone.
The intensity of the prosecution of ordinary workers makes people wonder if this is a political move by local government officials, Ross said.
The U.S. has a broken immigration system and if legislators and administrators do not fix it, this kind of situation will continue to recur, he said.
Ross wondered if it really made sense to spend all of this manpower and money on a few undocumented, minimum wage workers, especially in this time of budget cuts.
"Is this the crime we want to go after," Ross asked. "How much will it cost to hold them indefinitely?"
Even legal immigrants are afraid when this kind of prosecution happens, said one woman who works in agriculture.
She counseled the families to talk to attorneys without fear and tell their stories.
"We know that you are suffering," the woman said. "You have the right to be here."
Families which have been in the U.S. for 10 years and more, and those who have children born in the U.S. - which makes the children U.S. citizens - may be able to argue in immigration court that they should remain in the U.S., Meyer said.
There are also a number of other ways they might be able to stay in the country, but this case is more complex than just the possibility of deportation, he said.
What happens with immigrant status depends on what happens with the criminal charges, Meyer said.
Even if they are known as good workers and family men, a conviction can make them ineligible for immigration, he said.
Those who are pursuing this prosecution are trying to criminalize what people do to make a living in the U.S., Meyer said.
Some of the charges may be called felonies, but are not very serious, but every case must be examined individually, he said.
"The crime here is to be an immigrant," Meyer said.
These charges and any convictions or plea agreements can make it harder to win a case in immigration court and take away the defense that they are solid residents, Meyer said.
Ross said it could be difficult for any of the men to meet bail or to have the bail reset to a lower level.
The men could argue that Morgan County is their home, that this is their community and that they have no incentive to leave, but there are no guarantees that this would make a difference, Meyer said.
It is hard to tell if the 13th Judicial District Attorney's Office is willing to lower bail under any circumstances, he told the families.
How bail bond works largely depends on political and emotional issues and the atmosphere in the community, Meyer noted. In some cities these men would not receive such a high bond.
Sometimes there are negotiations during the legal process, but those who are charged must be careful about accepting any agreements, because such agreements could come back to haunt them, he said.
All of this is difficult for the men who have never been in jail, and they can easily become anxious and desperate to get out and support their families, but that might be a mistake, Meyer said.
They need to analyze any offers with the help of their public defenders or other attorneys before making decisions - particularly to understand if an agreement affects their immigration status, he said.
In some cases, it might be best to accept a plea agreement, but in other cases the defendant might lose any immigration opportunity, Meyer warned.
He also warned that men who get out of jail would not technically be allowed to work to support their families, although sometimes they can apply for work permits.
The defendants need to have confidence in their attorneys' advice, Meyer explained. Unfortunately, public defenders often have little experience with immigration law, he said.
These men face two trials on the criminal charges and immigration issues, and the immigration case will depend on how the criminal case is resolved, Meyer said.
Ross said the families' personal stories are important to CIRC members and others.
"We want to honor and respect what you're going through," Gonzales said.
CIRV will continue working to resolve this and other immigration issues, as well as to prevent this kind of situation, Ross said.
Ross explained that employers and workers are in a "Catch-22," and the current system sometimes destroys workers, families and communities.
That is a bad dynamic, because the economy often could not function without immigrant workers, he said.
Document experts have noted that when someone borrows a social security number it can cause problems, and not always intentionally. For example, if the person borrowing the number does not pay enough taxes, the person the number really belongs to could end up owing more taxes.
Some have urged the legislature and officials to increase the number of work permits for non-citizens to avoid the problems of people trying to use unauthorized documents, saying there is a need for those workers.
Gonzales said CIRC and others may try to appeal to the Obama administration and local officials.
She encouraged the families to tell their stories to U.S. legislators in order to touch their hearts.
It is important to let people know about this injustice, and it is urgent to do so now while it is fresh in the public's minds, Gonzales said.
People need to know how the families are suffering, she said.
http://www.fortmorgantimes.com/ci_18215649
The Fort Morgan Times
Posted: 06/06/2011
Although the Obama administration and the Office of Homeland Defense have said they will not make raids to catch immigrants unless they have committed serious crimes, such a raid did happened in Morgan County when 11 Hispanic dairy workers were arrested last week.
That was part of what was said during a couple of community meetings in Fort Morgan by representatives of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition as they came to talk to the wives and children of the men about what to expect from the court system and how to survive without their husbands' paychecks.
Those who showed up were predominantly women and children, and emotions were evident. Children wanted to talk about what was happening with their daddies and some women could barely restrain tears.
"(Children) cry," said one wife of a prisoner. "They don't understand. They just ask for their dad."
"There's a lot of fear right now," said Julie Gonzales, CIRC director of organization, adding that some families may be afraid to leave their homes.
In addition to a need for food and financial assistance, the women said their children could use some counseling from pastors or counselors.
People often do not understand how hard it is on the children when their parents are taken away, and they are not aware that the children have rights as American citizens, Gonzales said.
The timing of the raid was particularly hard on the families, because it was near the beginning of the month when rent and utility bills are due, she said.
CIRC is trying to set up a fund people can donate aid to, but that has not happened yet, Gonzales said.
In the meantime, those who want to help can take donations to the New Creation Church at 929 E. Burlington Ave., Gonzales said, also noting that other agencies like Caring Ministries might help out.
The families urgently need diapers, milk and infant formula, and can use other food. Donors can also contact Gonzales at 970-891-2712 or Damaris at 970-381-7123.
Eleven men were taken into custody following a grand jury indictment based on an inspection at the Wildcat Dairy in Morgan County. They were part of a group of 20 who were indicted.
Authorities claim a review of work eligibility forms found that the men were ineligible to work in the U.S.
Those who were arrested are charged with using forged social security and alien registration cards to gain employment.
They were advised of the charges and their rights Thursday morning in Morgan County District Court. All 11 face felony charges, including criminal impersonation, criminal impersonation to gain a benefit, possession of a forged social security card and possession of a forged alien registration card.
District Court Judge Douglas Vannoy advised the men that if convicted, these charges could carry penalties of as much as three years in prison, one year of mandatory parole and fines of up to $100,000. He set bail at $50,000 due to fears by the 13th Judicial District Attorney's Office that the men could flee the area.
Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Wiard told the judge that plea offers were ready to present to each of the defendants, but the District Attorney's Office is also ready for trial in each case.
CIRC Policy Director Hans Meyer, who is an attorney, cautioned families to look at any plea offers carefully before accepting them, because it could have consequences that last a lifetime.
This is a different situation than many earlier raids, because government officials are claiming they are criminals, not just undocumented workers, he said.
Immigration advocates are hearing contrasting messages from federal agencies, said CIRC Executive Director Julien Ross.
The Office of Homeland Security and the Obama administration have said they will not be pursuing everyday workers or raiding their homes if they have not committed serious crimes unrelated to immigration, he said.
These men face severe charges and exaggerated bond, Ross said.
Bonds of $50,000 seem to compare their actions to murder or kidnapping, which is unjust, Meyer said.
Families and friends know the arrested men are not criminals, that they are committed to supporting their families and are not flight risks, Ross said.
In conducting individual interviews to help counsel families, Meyer said he did not think any of the men had committed any serious crimes or intended any harm to anyone.
The intensity of the prosecution of ordinary workers makes people wonder if this is a political move by local government officials, Ross said.
The U.S. has a broken immigration system and if legislators and administrators do not fix it, this kind of situation will continue to recur, he said.
Ross wondered if it really made sense to spend all of this manpower and money on a few undocumented, minimum wage workers, especially in this time of budget cuts.
"Is this the crime we want to go after," Ross asked. "How much will it cost to hold them indefinitely?"
Even legal immigrants are afraid when this kind of prosecution happens, said one woman who works in agriculture.
She counseled the families to talk to attorneys without fear and tell their stories.
"We know that you are suffering," the woman said. "You have the right to be here."
Families which have been in the U.S. for 10 years and more, and those who have children born in the U.S. - which makes the children U.S. citizens - may be able to argue in immigration court that they should remain in the U.S., Meyer said.
There are also a number of other ways they might be able to stay in the country, but this case is more complex than just the possibility of deportation, he said.
What happens with immigrant status depends on what happens with the criminal charges, Meyer said.
Even if they are known as good workers and family men, a conviction can make them ineligible for immigration, he said.
Those who are pursuing this prosecution are trying to criminalize what people do to make a living in the U.S., Meyer said.
Some of the charges may be called felonies, but are not very serious, but every case must be examined individually, he said.
"The crime here is to be an immigrant," Meyer said.
These charges and any convictions or plea agreements can make it harder to win a case in immigration court and take away the defense that they are solid residents, Meyer said.
Ross said it could be difficult for any of the men to meet bail or to have the bail reset to a lower level.
The men could argue that Morgan County is their home, that this is their community and that they have no incentive to leave, but there are no guarantees that this would make a difference, Meyer said.
It is hard to tell if the 13th Judicial District Attorney's Office is willing to lower bail under any circumstances, he told the families.
How bail bond works largely depends on political and emotional issues and the atmosphere in the community, Meyer noted. In some cities these men would not receive such a high bond.
Sometimes there are negotiations during the legal process, but those who are charged must be careful about accepting any agreements, because such agreements could come back to haunt them, he said.
All of this is difficult for the men who have never been in jail, and they can easily become anxious and desperate to get out and support their families, but that might be a mistake, Meyer said.
They need to analyze any offers with the help of their public defenders or other attorneys before making decisions - particularly to understand if an agreement affects their immigration status, he said.
In some cases, it might be best to accept a plea agreement, but in other cases the defendant might lose any immigration opportunity, Meyer warned.
He also warned that men who get out of jail would not technically be allowed to work to support their families, although sometimes they can apply for work permits.
The defendants need to have confidence in their attorneys' advice, Meyer explained. Unfortunately, public defenders often have little experience with immigration law, he said.
These men face two trials on the criminal charges and immigration issues, and the immigration case will depend on how the criminal case is resolved, Meyer said.
Ross said the families' personal stories are important to CIRC members and others.
"We want to honor and respect what you're going through," Gonzales said.
CIRV will continue working to resolve this and other immigration issues, as well as to prevent this kind of situation, Ross said.
Ross explained that employers and workers are in a "Catch-22," and the current system sometimes destroys workers, families and communities.
That is a bad dynamic, because the economy often could not function without immigrant workers, he said.
Document experts have noted that when someone borrows a social security number it can cause problems, and not always intentionally. For example, if the person borrowing the number does not pay enough taxes, the person the number really belongs to could end up owing more taxes.
Some have urged the legislature and officials to increase the number of work permits for non-citizens to avoid the problems of people trying to use unauthorized documents, saying there is a need for those workers.
Gonzales said CIRC and others may try to appeal to the Obama administration and local officials.
She encouraged the families to tell their stories to U.S. legislators in order to touch their hearts.
It is important to let people know about this injustice, and it is urgent to do so now while it is fresh in the public's minds, Gonzales said.
People need to know how the families are suffering, she said.
http://www.fortmorgantimes.com/ci_18215649
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Downtown Asheville march to protest treatment of immigrant families
Written by Sandra V. Rodriguez
Citizen Times
April 30, 2011
ASHEVILLE — Immigration reform activists are hoping to put a human face to one of the nation's most contentious issues — illegal immigration — during a march Sunday.
Of particular concern to activists are the local deportations that are tearing families apart.
A coalition of community, workers' rights and immigration rights activists are marching on May Day, a traditional day of protest and celebration of workers rights, to call for an end to the arrests and deportations separating immigrant families in Western North Carolina.
“Mothers Against Family Separation” will be 2:30-5 p.m. in Pritchard Park and will make its way through the downtown streets and end at Aston Park, where there will be a picnicand participants can tell their stories.
“Anti-immigrant policies that exist in Western North Carolina impact women and their families almost disproportionately than other people,” said Michelle Bedard, organizer with the nonprofit Western North Carolina Workers Center.
“Not only are their labor rights being abused, at home they are worried because their children and their husbands are being racially profiled, pulled over by police and being deported without any criminal charges.”
That hurts the family economically and emotionally, she said.
The inability of the federal government to reform the immigration system has many activists concerned as more states and communities are enacting stricter laws in the meantime.
Activists believe Henderson County's 287(g) law has had a detrimental effect on the overall safety of the community as a whole. The law allows local police to check the citizenship status of anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally and deport them if necessary.
Loida Ginocchio-Silva hopes that by putting a human face to the issue, people and legislators will be able to talk about the issue calmly. The debate in recent years has resulted in many myths about illegal immigration being pushed into the mainstream, she said.
“People have these ideas, ‘Oh, the illegal immigrant, that person lives off welfare,'” said Ginocchio-Silva, with Defensa Comunitaria, a local group made up of immigrant youth, parents, advocates and non-immigrant allies.
She said that is not true. Immigrants cannot apply for welfare and they do pay taxes, she said. The IRS issues illegal immigrants a nine-digit number with the sole purpose of submitting taxes.
“The government knows that we are working here,” she said. “And they want our cheap labor, but they are not giving us any benefits except this number so we can pay into this system.”
Immigrant women workers have a strong showing in the local economy as they make up the basic staff in the hospitality industry yet women are paid the least, according to Bedard. She said she has seen too many women, being cheated out of wages, denied rights or harassed into dangerous work conditions even if they are pregnant.
“We want to be part of the march because we want to support women and fight discrimination alongside these women that are suffering at this time,” she said.
And because women are afraid of losing their livelihood, Bedard said they won't speak up about overtime or unsafe working conditions.
“That is not fair at all,” she said. “We want laws that are fair to everybody and that are also humane, that see everybody as human beings.”
Ginocchio-Silva knows that legislators can come up with humane immigration reform. She hopes that marches like this Sunday's help spur legislators to act sooner rather than later.
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20110430/NEWS/304300022/Immigration-reform-advocates-plan-Sunday-rally?odyssey=nav|head
Citizen Times
April 30, 2011
ASHEVILLE — Immigration reform activists are hoping to put a human face to one of the nation's most contentious issues — illegal immigration — during a march Sunday.
Of particular concern to activists are the local deportations that are tearing families apart.
A coalition of community, workers' rights and immigration rights activists are marching on May Day, a traditional day of protest and celebration of workers rights, to call for an end to the arrests and deportations separating immigrant families in Western North Carolina.
“Mothers Against Family Separation” will be 2:30-5 p.m. in Pritchard Park and will make its way through the downtown streets and end at Aston Park, where there will be a picnicand participants can tell their stories.
“Anti-immigrant policies that exist in Western North Carolina impact women and their families almost disproportionately than other people,” said Michelle Bedard, organizer with the nonprofit Western North Carolina Workers Center.
“Not only are their labor rights being abused, at home they are worried because their children and their husbands are being racially profiled, pulled over by police and being deported without any criminal charges.”
That hurts the family economically and emotionally, she said.
The inability of the federal government to reform the immigration system has many activists concerned as more states and communities are enacting stricter laws in the meantime.
Activists believe Henderson County's 287(g) law has had a detrimental effect on the overall safety of the community as a whole. The law allows local police to check the citizenship status of anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally and deport them if necessary.
Loida Ginocchio-Silva hopes that by putting a human face to the issue, people and legislators will be able to talk about the issue calmly. The debate in recent years has resulted in many myths about illegal immigration being pushed into the mainstream, she said.
“People have these ideas, ‘Oh, the illegal immigrant, that person lives off welfare,'” said Ginocchio-Silva, with Defensa Comunitaria, a local group made up of immigrant youth, parents, advocates and non-immigrant allies.
She said that is not true. Immigrants cannot apply for welfare and they do pay taxes, she said. The IRS issues illegal immigrants a nine-digit number with the sole purpose of submitting taxes.
“The government knows that we are working here,” she said. “And they want our cheap labor, but they are not giving us any benefits except this number so we can pay into this system.”
Immigrant women workers have a strong showing in the local economy as they make up the basic staff in the hospitality industry yet women are paid the least, according to Bedard. She said she has seen too many women, being cheated out of wages, denied rights or harassed into dangerous work conditions even if they are pregnant.
“We want to be part of the march because we want to support women and fight discrimination alongside these women that are suffering at this time,” she said.
And because women are afraid of losing their livelihood, Bedard said they won't speak up about overtime or unsafe working conditions.
“That is not fair at all,” she said. “We want laws that are fair to everybody and that are also humane, that see everybody as human beings.”
Ginocchio-Silva knows that legislators can come up with humane immigration reform. She hopes that marches like this Sunday's help spur legislators to act sooner rather than later.
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20110430/NEWS/304300022/Immigration-reform-advocates-plan-Sunday-rally?odyssey=nav|head
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Deportation divides Orange County family
By YVETTE CABRERA
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
March 17, 2011
As Martha Morales stood before the altar at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Tijuana her thoughts were focused on one thing – her children.
"Make sure that they have everything they need," she prayed. "Make sure that nothing happens to them because they are going to be all alone."
That was May 8, 2008.
A day earlier, Martha had been separated from her six children – then ages 1 to 23 – when she was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At 6 a.m., at the family's Orange County home, she was handcuffed and taken to the ICE facility in Santa Ana.
Her husband, Juan Manuel, a welder, was already at work, but he was also ordered to appear at the facility. By day's end, the couple – in the United States for 19 years – were deported to Tijuana. They left behind their six children, three undocumented and three U.S. citizens, on their own.
Increasingly, as more undocumented parents are deported, such separations are becoming common, leaving families with a painful decision – leave U.S. citizen children behind, or pull them out of the only country they've ever known.
In the past decade, the number of U.S. citizens born to undocumented immigrants more than doubled, to 4.5 million, according to data released last month by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization.
In the same period, immigration officials have cracked down on the undocumented, more than doubling the number of deportations. In 2010, ICE statistics show that 392,862 undocumented immigrants were deported.
Naturally, the trend has become fodder in the immigration debate. Some politicians want to repeal the right to citizenship granted in the 14th Amendment. Meanwhile, immigration activists and others are speaking out against such a move, calling it fundamentally un-American.
But behind closed doors, in the homes of families separated by legal deportations, the people paying the full price in this battle are children.
In January, I traveled with a news team from KCET's series "SOCAL Connected" to the border town of Tecate, Mexico. That's where Martha and Juan Manuel live, in a friend's home, with their youngest daughter, Aileen, now 4, a U.S. citizen. Their sons, Rodrigo, 16, and Rigoberto, 12, with the help of Rigoberto's godparents, drove down for a visit. The two-hour trip has become a ritual for the brothers, both U.S. citizens, on weekends and holidays.
The two-day visit felt more like two minutes, as the parents crammed in as much love as they could. Martha oohed and aahed over Rigoberto's artwork. She made the boys' favorite foods. She knew that, soon, her sons would be out of reach.
Martha crossed illegally into the United States in 1989. Juan Manuel had likewise entered the country illegally six months earlier. For the next 19 years, until the day they were deported, Juan Manuel worked steadily for the same boating company. Martha worked as a seamstress and, later, in a hotel laundry.
The family never received government aid, and through their jobs, they had health insurance.
"The dreams that we had for ourselves we now wanted for (our children.) What we couldn't accomplish, we wanted them to accomplish," says Martha, 49, in Spanish.
Eight years ago, the couple filed paperwork to become legal residents. And an immigration judge granted them permission to stay in the United States, concluding that deporting the couple would result in "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship."
But the Department of Homeland Security appealed that decision and, in 2006, the couple was instructed to voluntarily depart the country. Still, working with a man they believed to be a lawyer, they stayed, believing their appeal was still under way.
That was not the case.
In May, 2008, as ICE agents handcuffed her, Martha, wearing pajamas and slippers, told her children to remain calm.
"She looks into our eyes and tells us, 'Everything is going to be OK. ... ' And that was really hard," says her son Adrian, a 24-year-old Cal State University student who is majoring in deaf studies and hopes to become a sign-language interpreter.
Yet life has been anything but fine. Now, Adrian, along with his 26-year-old brother, is trying to parent Rodrigo and Rigoberto. They show up for parent nights at school, check homework, and mete out discipline.
"It's hard and I am still learning," says Adrian, one of the Morales' three undocumented children.
Clearly, immigration reform is needed.
But what good does it do to separate otherwise law-abiding families? Lost among the strident voices calling to deport "all illegals" is a solution that acknowledges America's reliance on this undocumented labor force.
Critics say undocumented immigrants like Martha want to come here so the United States can take care of them.
The truth is Martha just wants to take care of her children.
For now, however, she can't. She and Juan Manuel must wait five years before they can try to return legally to the United States.
"As a mother you're a protector, even when (your children are) grown, you worry," says Martha. "That's why I asked the Virgin of Guadalupe – "Give us the patience, the strength to withstand this difficult moment."
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/martha-292443-children-undocumented.html
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
March 17, 2011
As Martha Morales stood before the altar at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Tijuana her thoughts were focused on one thing – her children.
"Make sure that they have everything they need," she prayed. "Make sure that nothing happens to them because they are going to be all alone."
That was May 8, 2008.
A day earlier, Martha had been separated from her six children – then ages 1 to 23 – when she was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At 6 a.m., at the family's Orange County home, she was handcuffed and taken to the ICE facility in Santa Ana.
Her husband, Juan Manuel, a welder, was already at work, but he was also ordered to appear at the facility. By day's end, the couple – in the United States for 19 years – were deported to Tijuana. They left behind their six children, three undocumented and three U.S. citizens, on their own.
Increasingly, as more undocumented parents are deported, such separations are becoming common, leaving families with a painful decision – leave U.S. citizen children behind, or pull them out of the only country they've ever known.
In the past decade, the number of U.S. citizens born to undocumented immigrants more than doubled, to 4.5 million, according to data released last month by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization.
In the same period, immigration officials have cracked down on the undocumented, more than doubling the number of deportations. In 2010, ICE statistics show that 392,862 undocumented immigrants were deported.
Naturally, the trend has become fodder in the immigration debate. Some politicians want to repeal the right to citizenship granted in the 14th Amendment. Meanwhile, immigration activists and others are speaking out against such a move, calling it fundamentally un-American.
But behind closed doors, in the homes of families separated by legal deportations, the people paying the full price in this battle are children.
In January, I traveled with a news team from KCET's series "SOCAL Connected" to the border town of Tecate, Mexico. That's where Martha and Juan Manuel live, in a friend's home, with their youngest daughter, Aileen, now 4, a U.S. citizen. Their sons, Rodrigo, 16, and Rigoberto, 12, with the help of Rigoberto's godparents, drove down for a visit. The two-hour trip has become a ritual for the brothers, both U.S. citizens, on weekends and holidays.
The two-day visit felt more like two minutes, as the parents crammed in as much love as they could. Martha oohed and aahed over Rigoberto's artwork. She made the boys' favorite foods. She knew that, soon, her sons would be out of reach.
Martha crossed illegally into the United States in 1989. Juan Manuel had likewise entered the country illegally six months earlier. For the next 19 years, until the day they were deported, Juan Manuel worked steadily for the same boating company. Martha worked as a seamstress and, later, in a hotel laundry.
The family never received government aid, and through their jobs, they had health insurance.
"The dreams that we had for ourselves we now wanted for (our children.) What we couldn't accomplish, we wanted them to accomplish," says Martha, 49, in Spanish.
Eight years ago, the couple filed paperwork to become legal residents. And an immigration judge granted them permission to stay in the United States, concluding that deporting the couple would result in "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship."
But the Department of Homeland Security appealed that decision and, in 2006, the couple was instructed to voluntarily depart the country. Still, working with a man they believed to be a lawyer, they stayed, believing their appeal was still under way.
That was not the case.
In May, 2008, as ICE agents handcuffed her, Martha, wearing pajamas and slippers, told her children to remain calm.
"She looks into our eyes and tells us, 'Everything is going to be OK. ... ' And that was really hard," says her son Adrian, a 24-year-old Cal State University student who is majoring in deaf studies and hopes to become a sign-language interpreter.
Yet life has been anything but fine. Now, Adrian, along with his 26-year-old brother, is trying to parent Rodrigo and Rigoberto. They show up for parent nights at school, check homework, and mete out discipline.
"It's hard and I am still learning," says Adrian, one of the Morales' three undocumented children.
Clearly, immigration reform is needed.
But what good does it do to separate otherwise law-abiding families? Lost among the strident voices calling to deport "all illegals" is a solution that acknowledges America's reliance on this undocumented labor force.
Critics say undocumented immigrants like Martha want to come here so the United States can take care of them.
The truth is Martha just wants to take care of her children.
For now, however, she can't. She and Juan Manuel must wait five years before they can try to return legally to the United States.
"As a mother you're a protector, even when (your children are) grown, you worry," says Martha. "That's why I asked the Virgin of Guadalupe – "Give us the patience, the strength to withstand this difficult moment."
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/martha-292443-children-undocumented.html
Monday, November 29, 2010
Facing deportation, mother has hard choice: Should she leave her children behind?
Robert L. Smith
The Plain Dealer
November 27, 2010
For the Maldonado children of Painesville, life as they know it is about to end and probably end badly.
The two oldest, Juan and Ivan, were young children when their parents brought them across the border. They retain only hazy recollections of Mexico.
The four youngest have never left the neighborhood. Now the sun is setting on their familiar world.
Federal agents arrested and deported their dad, Diego, nearly three weeks ago. Their mom, Manuela, must report to immigration authorities in downtown Cleveland by Dec. 14, with or without her American-born children.
After a decade working and living in the shadows, the Maldonados were found out. Now a mother faces a desperate choice, one expected to become more common in Northeast Ohio: Should she uproot her family whole, or leave children behind?
"We have nothing in Mexico," Manuela Maldonado said through an interpreter, her face a mask of pain and confusion.
Those in her working-poor neighborhood realize that the ejection of a well-liked family is but a beginning. Without immigration law reform, Lake County's largely illegal Mexican community faces a harrowing future.
Immigration enforcement is accelerating. And there is little public sympathy for a family of "illegals," even when half that family is American.
That reality lent an anxious edge to a recent display of solidarity, when dozens of neighbors and friends gathered around the Maldonado family's modest home on a rainy afternoon to show support.
"You'll probably see us again with another family in a couple weeks," said Veronica Dahlberg, an advocate for the Hispanic community. "Everybody's scared."
In Lake County, home to the region's largest concentration of illegal immigrants, legal and cultural forces are heading toward a painful clash.
The county's $90-million nursery industry is staffed largely by Mexican immigrants, many of whom arrived over the last 30 years from Leon, a major city in central Mexico. Some came with work visas. Many did not.
Dahlberg estimates Lake and Ashtabula counties are home to 8,000 to 9,000 Mexican immigrants, and maybe 75 percent of the community is undocumented, lacking legal status.
After years here, the community is deeply rooted. Many Mexican immigrants belong to so-called "mixed-status families," a blend of citizens and non-citizens, which complicates deportations and heightens the moral dilemma.
For decades, the presence of illegal immigrants was largely ignored in a county enriched by their labor. Nursery work is hard, dirty and seasonal, and Mexicans are simply the latest immigrant group willing to do it.
"For the most part, they're very good workers," said Mark Gilson, owner of Gilson Gardens in Perry and the past president of the Nursery Growers of Lake County Ohio. "I think they would make very good citizens."
His trade group supports comprehensive immigration reform, which might offer a path to citizenship for families like the Maldonados.
But the anti-immigrant sentiment pervasive nationally percolates in Northeast Ohio. Citizens groups have sprung up to lobby for stricter enforcement of existing immigration laws and to oppose anything that smacks of amnesty.
Julie Aldrich, a leader of a group that calls itself the Grassroots Rally Team, said Diego and Manuela knew the risk when they crossed the border.
"I do feel bad for the children, but it's the parents who should feel guilty, not us," she said. "We have to have laws and we need to enforce those laws."
That is becoming easier to do. Regional immigration authorities, once barely noticeable, are now flush with manpower and resources. The Department of Homeland Security has steadily reinforced its Border Patrol stations in Sandusky and in Erie, Pa.
The Border Patrol, in turn, alerted local cops and sheriff's deputies that it stands ready to take custody of any illegal immigrants they might encounter, and Hispanics now complain of being pulled over for "driving while brown."
At the Nov. 16 vigil outside the Maldonado home, a girl held a sign reading, "Traffic Stops = Deportation. Stop Tearing Apart Families."
It was bad luck, not a stop sign, that outed the Maldonados.
When immigration agents swept through Painesville in May of 2007, targeting people who had ignored court orders or been accused of crimes, they arrested any suspected illegal immigrants they stumbled upon, some 40 in all. Diego Maldonado was one of those "collateral arrests."
He and Manuela had come across the border in 1997, seeking to escape the poverty and the hopelessness of Leon, Manuela said. They started in California but headed to Painesville after Diego's brother assured them they could find work.
He was right. Both Diego and Manuela were working, he in a factory and she at a nursery, when Diego opened the door to a federal agent looking for someone else, a fateful decision. The couple had been in the country nine years and nine months. Had they reached the 10-year threshold, both would have been entitled to apply for legal status.
The family tried to fight deportation but by last year their savings and their legal options were exhausted. The couple failed to follow an immigration court's order to leave the country, said Kaahlid Walls, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, so the government acted.
On Nov. 9, ICE agents were waiting outside when Diego left for work. Ivan Maldonado, 15, witnessed his father's arrest through the front window and raced crying to his mother, who kept the children inside and called Dahlberg. She reached a lawyer who convinced ICE to allow the rest of the family to turn themselves in.
Dad was flown to San Antonio, Texas, and on Nov. 16 was sent walking across the border into Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, beginning his grim trek back to Leon.
Manuela, 40, faces life-changing decisions. Her youngest, Kevin, is three. The oldest, Juan, 18, cares for a baby boy he had with his American girlfriend. The family has no home in Mexico. Most of the children speak only English.
Should some be left behind, she wonders, for the better chance America offers? Who would raise them?
Should she take them all back to Mexico -- and to what?
It's a dilemma that pricks the conscience of a community.
At a community meeting Tuesday night, Rev. Roderick Coffee heard Manuela Maldonado share her story. He's pastor of a Concord congregation and president of the Lake County NAACP, which is newly interested in the immigration issue.
"I would think that we would be more prepared to handle this in a humanistic way," he said. "America has experience at immigration. We should be getting better."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: rsmith@plaind.com, 216-999-4024
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/11/facing_deportation_mother_has.html
The Plain Dealer
November 27, 2010
For the Maldonado children of Painesville, life as they know it is about to end and probably end badly.
The two oldest, Juan and Ivan, were young children when their parents brought them across the border. They retain only hazy recollections of Mexico.
The four youngest have never left the neighborhood. Now the sun is setting on their familiar world.
Federal agents arrested and deported their dad, Diego, nearly three weeks ago. Their mom, Manuela, must report to immigration authorities in downtown Cleveland by Dec. 14, with or without her American-born children.
After a decade working and living in the shadows, the Maldonados were found out. Now a mother faces a desperate choice, one expected to become more common in Northeast Ohio: Should she uproot her family whole, or leave children behind?
"We have nothing in Mexico," Manuela Maldonado said through an interpreter, her face a mask of pain and confusion.
Those in her working-poor neighborhood realize that the ejection of a well-liked family is but a beginning. Without immigration law reform, Lake County's largely illegal Mexican community faces a harrowing future.
Immigration enforcement is accelerating. And there is little public sympathy for a family of "illegals," even when half that family is American.
That reality lent an anxious edge to a recent display of solidarity, when dozens of neighbors and friends gathered around the Maldonado family's modest home on a rainy afternoon to show support.
"You'll probably see us again with another family in a couple weeks," said Veronica Dahlberg, an advocate for the Hispanic community. "Everybody's scared."
In Lake County, home to the region's largest concentration of illegal immigrants, legal and cultural forces are heading toward a painful clash.
The county's $90-million nursery industry is staffed largely by Mexican immigrants, many of whom arrived over the last 30 years from Leon, a major city in central Mexico. Some came with work visas. Many did not.
Dahlberg estimates Lake and Ashtabula counties are home to 8,000 to 9,000 Mexican immigrants, and maybe 75 percent of the community is undocumented, lacking legal status.
After years here, the community is deeply rooted. Many Mexican immigrants belong to so-called "mixed-status families," a blend of citizens and non-citizens, which complicates deportations and heightens the moral dilemma.
For decades, the presence of illegal immigrants was largely ignored in a county enriched by their labor. Nursery work is hard, dirty and seasonal, and Mexicans are simply the latest immigrant group willing to do it.
"For the most part, they're very good workers," said Mark Gilson, owner of Gilson Gardens in Perry and the past president of the Nursery Growers of Lake County Ohio. "I think they would make very good citizens."
His trade group supports comprehensive immigration reform, which might offer a path to citizenship for families like the Maldonados.
But the anti-immigrant sentiment pervasive nationally percolates in Northeast Ohio. Citizens groups have sprung up to lobby for stricter enforcement of existing immigration laws and to oppose anything that smacks of amnesty.
Julie Aldrich, a leader of a group that calls itself the Grassroots Rally Team, said Diego and Manuela knew the risk when they crossed the border.
"I do feel bad for the children, but it's the parents who should feel guilty, not us," she said. "We have to have laws and we need to enforce those laws."
That is becoming easier to do. Regional immigration authorities, once barely noticeable, are now flush with manpower and resources. The Department of Homeland Security has steadily reinforced its Border Patrol stations in Sandusky and in Erie, Pa.
The Border Patrol, in turn, alerted local cops and sheriff's deputies that it stands ready to take custody of any illegal immigrants they might encounter, and Hispanics now complain of being pulled over for "driving while brown."
At the Nov. 16 vigil outside the Maldonado home, a girl held a sign reading, "Traffic Stops = Deportation. Stop Tearing Apart Families."
It was bad luck, not a stop sign, that outed the Maldonados.
When immigration agents swept through Painesville in May of 2007, targeting people who had ignored court orders or been accused of crimes, they arrested any suspected illegal immigrants they stumbled upon, some 40 in all. Diego Maldonado was one of those "collateral arrests."
He and Manuela had come across the border in 1997, seeking to escape the poverty and the hopelessness of Leon, Manuela said. They started in California but headed to Painesville after Diego's brother assured them they could find work.
He was right. Both Diego and Manuela were working, he in a factory and she at a nursery, when Diego opened the door to a federal agent looking for someone else, a fateful decision. The couple had been in the country nine years and nine months. Had they reached the 10-year threshold, both would have been entitled to apply for legal status.
The family tried to fight deportation but by last year their savings and their legal options were exhausted. The couple failed to follow an immigration court's order to leave the country, said Kaahlid Walls, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, so the government acted.
On Nov. 9, ICE agents were waiting outside when Diego left for work. Ivan Maldonado, 15, witnessed his father's arrest through the front window and raced crying to his mother, who kept the children inside and called Dahlberg. She reached a lawyer who convinced ICE to allow the rest of the family to turn themselves in.
Dad was flown to San Antonio, Texas, and on Nov. 16 was sent walking across the border into Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, beginning his grim trek back to Leon.
Manuela, 40, faces life-changing decisions. Her youngest, Kevin, is three. The oldest, Juan, 18, cares for a baby boy he had with his American girlfriend. The family has no home in Mexico. Most of the children speak only English.
Should some be left behind, she wonders, for the better chance America offers? Who would raise them?
Should she take them all back to Mexico -- and to what?
It's a dilemma that pricks the conscience of a community.
At a community meeting Tuesday night, Rev. Roderick Coffee heard Manuela Maldonado share her story. He's pastor of a Concord congregation and president of the Lake County NAACP, which is newly interested in the immigration issue.
"I would think that we would be more prepared to handle this in a humanistic way," he said. "America has experience at immigration. We should be getting better."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: rsmith@plaind.com, 216-999-4024
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/11/facing_deportation_mother_has.html
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
As immigration fight grinds on, family's options are dwindling
By CARRIE WELLS
Herald Tribune
Saturday, October 2, 2010
SARASOTA - Wendy Garcia has lived in Sarasota under political asylum for more than a decade, and the 21-year-old has built a life and family here.
But political changes in her native country of Guatemala led the U.S. to revoke her asylum status and technically make her an illegal immigrant.
On Monday, Garcia, her fiance and their 3-month-old son will travel to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Tampa to find out if her request for a one-year reprieve from deportation will be granted, or if she and her baby will have to immediately leave the U.S. They are scrambling to get together food and money to support her and baby Christopher if they are sent back to Guatemala, as expected.
The move by ICE to deport Garcia appears to contradict recent statements and memos by top federal officials, including President Barack Obama.
John Morton, the head of ICE, recently directed agents to make it a priority to deport only those immigrants with criminal records. He even suggested that the agency cancel deportations of some immigrants who were likely to win legal status, which could include Garcia.
President Obama has said he objects to deporting immigrants who do not have criminal records, saying in a 2008 speech that "nursing mothers torn from their babies," would be an example of immigration failure.
And yet ICE continues to pursue deportation of many immigrants low on the priority list. That means people like Garcia, who, according to records, has never had so much as a speeding ticket in Sarasota and has had political asylum for years.
Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for ICE, said the agency has deported a record number of criminal immigrants and still has an obligation to deport illegal immigrants, even if they are not high on the priority list.
"This administration is committed to smart, effective immigration reform, prioritizing the arrest and removal of criminal aliens and those who pose a danger to national security," she said.
But, she added, "our agents are mandated by Congress to enforce U.S. immigration laws."
ICE officials would not comment on why Garcia and her parents were targeted. But the long, and some say sordid, relationship the U.S. had with Guatemala from the 1950s to the 1980s could be a factor.
According to the Washington Post, documents declassified in the 1990s showed that the U.S. government was closely aligned with Guatemalan security forces for decades, despite the fact that those forces battling leftist insurgents had killed thousands of civilians in the Central American nation during its long and bloody civil war.
In 1999, the Post reported, former President Bill Clinton said America was wrong to have supported the security forces that reportedly tortured or killed thousands of civilians, mainly of them rural Mayans.
Garcia came to the U.S. a decade ago with her father, a former soldier in the Guatemalan army. The family, including her mother and two brothers, were granted political asylum because her father had been a soldier in the American-backed war, Garcia said. Two years ago, the family was told the political asylum had been revoked because the country was considered safe again for army veterans.
Since then, the family has filed various appeals, all denied. In July, her father was arrested at work in Sarasota and deported after being held for a week in a detention center in Miami. Her mother, brother and nephew left voluntarily.
The stress and uncertainty of Garcia's immigration status has left Garcia and her fiance, Eliezer Rivera, 27, unable to sleep at night. Rivera, a full-time student at the University of South Florida who supports the family with a music-recording business, has lost clients and seen his grades drop since the ICE letter arrived. Rivera is a legal resident from the Dominican Republic and can apply for citizenship in November.
"I always wanted to have a family and for everything to be normal," Garcia, 21, said recently as she bounced son Christopher on her knee in their north Sarasota rental home. "It's going to separate us and I don't know for how long."
Garcia wants to stay, get married, gain citizenship and raise her child in America. Immigration lawyers say her chance of gaining citizenship is minimal, but could be bolstered by a recent federal appeals court ruling that allowed a Guatemalan woman to avoid deportation and seek political asylum due to her gender.
The California court reversed a deportation order for a Nevada woman based on an argument that because 3,800 Guatemalan woman have been murdered since 2000, just being a woman could qualify Garcia and other female illegal immigrants for asylum.
For now, though, if Garcia's plea for a reprieve is denied in Tampa Monday, she will be forced to leave, taking Christopher with her. Rivera would then try to bring her back legally.
The couple have packed away most of their belongings and baby toys; Rivera must find a cheaper place to live in order to support himself here, and Garcia and the baby in Guatemala.
But on the fridge remains a magnet with a calendar the couple made in happier times. "I hope to see you in love every single one of these days," it says in Spanish.
The uncertainty over Garcia's immigration status has stalled her wedding. The couple said they weren't sure if getting married would be seen as a false attempt to keep Garcia in the country.
"I respect the immigration law, but I hate the inhuman decision," said Rivera, who has been with Garcia for three years. "The government doesn't care if you're a student and fighting for a future. They don't care."
The couple worry in particular about how baby Christopher will fare in Guatemala. The small city where Garcia is from, Huehuetenango, has no running water and scarce electricity. Education is limited.
A one-year reprieve would give the couple time to raise money to make life easier if they had to return to Guatemala.
Cheryl Little, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, a Miami-based organization that provides pro-bono legal support to immigrants, said that despite Morton's directive to ICE agents, she still sees many cases like Garcia's. Comprehensive immigration reform must be passed by Congress, she said.
"It's been very frustrating for us because we constantly hear immigration officials talk about how they're targeting dangerous criminals, and yet when we go into the detention centers that's not who we're seeing," Little said.
In Congress, comprehensive reforms that could allow Garcia to stay in the country has stalled due to partisan disagreement.
Maggie Davis, a local writer and client of Rivera's music-recording business, heard the couple's story and wrote letters to numerous government officials, pleading to give Garcia that year's reprieve.
"I have a feeling that what's going on in Tampa is an attempt to produce some very pretty numbers," she said. "This is my guess: that they are picking up people who are easy to locate. Why are we deporting people who we gave asylum to? Of all the people we could pick to deport, Wendy is down on the list."
Navas, the ICE spokeswoman, said that Garcia had the "full due process of law," and that her appeals had been exhausted.
"ICE is continuing to work with Ms. Garcia-Alfaro on her arrangements to depart the U.S. while remaining sensitive to her family situation and needs," she said."
Rivera is distraught. "It's like somebody's cutting my fingers off," said Rivera. "How am I going to prepare for this?"
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101002/ARTICLE/10021035/2055/NEWS?p=all&tc=pgall
Herald Tribune
Saturday, October 2, 2010
SARASOTA - Wendy Garcia has lived in Sarasota under political asylum for more than a decade, and the 21-year-old has built a life and family here.
But political changes in her native country of Guatemala led the U.S. to revoke her asylum status and technically make her an illegal immigrant.
On Monday, Garcia, her fiance and their 3-month-old son will travel to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Tampa to find out if her request for a one-year reprieve from deportation will be granted, or if she and her baby will have to immediately leave the U.S. They are scrambling to get together food and money to support her and baby Christopher if they are sent back to Guatemala, as expected.
The move by ICE to deport Garcia appears to contradict recent statements and memos by top federal officials, including President Barack Obama.
John Morton, the head of ICE, recently directed agents to make it a priority to deport only those immigrants with criminal records. He even suggested that the agency cancel deportations of some immigrants who were likely to win legal status, which could include Garcia.
President Obama has said he objects to deporting immigrants who do not have criminal records, saying in a 2008 speech that "nursing mothers torn from their babies," would be an example of immigration failure.
And yet ICE continues to pursue deportation of many immigrants low on the priority list. That means people like Garcia, who, according to records, has never had so much as a speeding ticket in Sarasota and has had political asylum for years.
Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for ICE, said the agency has deported a record number of criminal immigrants and still has an obligation to deport illegal immigrants, even if they are not high on the priority list.
"This administration is committed to smart, effective immigration reform, prioritizing the arrest and removal of criminal aliens and those who pose a danger to national security," she said.
But, she added, "our agents are mandated by Congress to enforce U.S. immigration laws."
ICE officials would not comment on why Garcia and her parents were targeted. But the long, and some say sordid, relationship the U.S. had with Guatemala from the 1950s to the 1980s could be a factor.
According to the Washington Post, documents declassified in the 1990s showed that the U.S. government was closely aligned with Guatemalan security forces for decades, despite the fact that those forces battling leftist insurgents had killed thousands of civilians in the Central American nation during its long and bloody civil war.
In 1999, the Post reported, former President Bill Clinton said America was wrong to have supported the security forces that reportedly tortured or killed thousands of civilians, mainly of them rural Mayans.
Garcia came to the U.S. a decade ago with her father, a former soldier in the Guatemalan army. The family, including her mother and two brothers, were granted political asylum because her father had been a soldier in the American-backed war, Garcia said. Two years ago, the family was told the political asylum had been revoked because the country was considered safe again for army veterans.
Since then, the family has filed various appeals, all denied. In July, her father was arrested at work in Sarasota and deported after being held for a week in a detention center in Miami. Her mother, brother and nephew left voluntarily.
The stress and uncertainty of Garcia's immigration status has left Garcia and her fiance, Eliezer Rivera, 27, unable to sleep at night. Rivera, a full-time student at the University of South Florida who supports the family with a music-recording business, has lost clients and seen his grades drop since the ICE letter arrived. Rivera is a legal resident from the Dominican Republic and can apply for citizenship in November.
"I always wanted to have a family and for everything to be normal," Garcia, 21, said recently as she bounced son Christopher on her knee in their north Sarasota rental home. "It's going to separate us and I don't know for how long."
Garcia wants to stay, get married, gain citizenship and raise her child in America. Immigration lawyers say her chance of gaining citizenship is minimal, but could be bolstered by a recent federal appeals court ruling that allowed a Guatemalan woman to avoid deportation and seek political asylum due to her gender.
The California court reversed a deportation order for a Nevada woman based on an argument that because 3,800 Guatemalan woman have been murdered since 2000, just being a woman could qualify Garcia and other female illegal immigrants for asylum.
For now, though, if Garcia's plea for a reprieve is denied in Tampa Monday, she will be forced to leave, taking Christopher with her. Rivera would then try to bring her back legally.
The couple have packed away most of their belongings and baby toys; Rivera must find a cheaper place to live in order to support himself here, and Garcia and the baby in Guatemala.
But on the fridge remains a magnet with a calendar the couple made in happier times. "I hope to see you in love every single one of these days," it says in Spanish.
The uncertainty over Garcia's immigration status has stalled her wedding. The couple said they weren't sure if getting married would be seen as a false attempt to keep Garcia in the country.
"I respect the immigration law, but I hate the inhuman decision," said Rivera, who has been with Garcia for three years. "The government doesn't care if you're a student and fighting for a future. They don't care."
The couple worry in particular about how baby Christopher will fare in Guatemala. The small city where Garcia is from, Huehuetenango, has no running water and scarce electricity. Education is limited.
A one-year reprieve would give the couple time to raise money to make life easier if they had to return to Guatemala.
Cheryl Little, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, a Miami-based organization that provides pro-bono legal support to immigrants, said that despite Morton's directive to ICE agents, she still sees many cases like Garcia's. Comprehensive immigration reform must be passed by Congress, she said.
"It's been very frustrating for us because we constantly hear immigration officials talk about how they're targeting dangerous criminals, and yet when we go into the detention centers that's not who we're seeing," Little said.
In Congress, comprehensive reforms that could allow Garcia to stay in the country has stalled due to partisan disagreement.
Maggie Davis, a local writer and client of Rivera's music-recording business, heard the couple's story and wrote letters to numerous government officials, pleading to give Garcia that year's reprieve.
"I have a feeling that what's going on in Tampa is an attempt to produce some very pretty numbers," she said. "This is my guess: that they are picking up people who are easy to locate. Why are we deporting people who we gave asylum to? Of all the people we could pick to deport, Wendy is down on the list."
Navas, the ICE spokeswoman, said that Garcia had the "full due process of law," and that her appeals had been exhausted.
"ICE is continuing to work with Ms. Garcia-Alfaro on her arrangements to depart the U.S. while remaining sensitive to her family situation and needs," she said."
Rivera is distraught. "It's like somebody's cutting my fingers off," said Rivera. "How am I going to prepare for this?"
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101002/ARTICLE/10021035/2055/NEWS?p=all&tc=pgall
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Deportation of Mothers in Iowa Tests Local Charity
By Susan Elan
WeNews correspondent
February 21, 2010
A 2008 immigration raid in Iowa separated women from their children through arrest and deportation with, some say, the children's fate left to chance. An immigration official refutes that, saying women with children were released on humanitarian grounds.
POSTVILLE, Iowa (WOMENSENEWS)--Consuelo Vega, a mother of three, lived and worked in this small town surrounded by cornfields for 11 years.
Then in May 2008, she was arrested, jailed for five months and deported to Mexico following a massive, military-style immigration raid at a Kosher meat processing plant.
Vega's three children remained behind in the care of her older daughter, San Lopez, who was 18 and worked part time at a local bakery while raising her infant son.
Overnight, after her mother's deportation, Lopez's responsibilities multiplied as she took charge of her 12-year-old brother Pedro Lopez and 8-year-old sister Samantha Lopez.
"How many nights I could not sleep wondering what we were going to do the next day," she said. "I had to act like nothing was wrong to help my sister and brother but I was also depressed."
A study by the nonpartisan Urban Institute, based in Washington, D.C., found that for every two immigrants apprehended, one child is left behind.
Potentially thousands of parents and children have been separated as a result of immigration enforcement activities and millions more may be at risk, the researchers said. Two-thirds of the children affected are U.S. citizens or legal residents.
Carl Rusnok, spokesperson for U.S. ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Central Region, said 62 of the nearly 400 arrested in the Postville raid were released on humanitarian grounds, mainly because they were the only caregivers for their children.
"ICE agents at that site and all sites take extraordinary measures to determine if any of those arrested are sole caregivers," Rusnok said.
At the time of her arrest, Vega worked 12-to-16 hour days, six days a week, butchering cattle at Agriprocessors Inc. She earned $6.25 an hour, less than Iowa's hourly minimum wage of $7.25.
When U.S. immigration agents stormed the plant on May 12, 2008, arresting Vega and hundreds of other mostly Mexican and Guatemalan workers, Vega told them she had no children because she feared they would be imprisoned and deported too.
'No One Would Listen'
Shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles and bused 90 miles to the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo for arraignment, Vega later tried to tell immigration officials that she had three children at home. No one would listen, her daughter said.
ICE's Rusnok doubts that could have happened. "During Postville and all our operations we repeatedly ask …whether they have medical issues, sole caregiver issues or any other issues that might cause them to be released on humanitarian grounds," he said.
Lopez said that with no means of communicating with her family for weeks, her mother began an odyssey through a series of detention centers scattered from Leavenworth, Kan., to Tallahassee, Fla., before her deportation to Mexico five months later.
About 40 other mothers arrested during the raid on Agriprocessors had GPS-like devices strapped to their ankles so ICE agents could monitor their movements. The devices caused bruising but could not be removed. It took two hours a day to charge them from an electrical wall outlet.
Often the only breadwinner in the family, the detained mothers were not permitted to work or to leave the state.
"It is a horrible life we are living now," said Maria Ruiz, 33, who came to Postville from Guatemala 11 years ago. The single mother of a 6-year-old U.S.-born son earned $7.25 an hour working in the frigid meat packaging area at Agriprocessors.
Relying on Church Charity
Since her arrest, Ruiz and her son, along with many other detainees and their children, have relied on local Catholic and Lutheran churches to pay for their food, housing, medical and other expenses.
ICE's Rusnok said the women had alternatives. Had they not contested their deportation, they would have been sent to their country of origin and not had to depend on charity. "It is something they chose to do themselves," he said.
http://www.womensenews.org/story/immigration/100219/deportation-mothers-in-iowa-tests-local-charity
WeNews correspondent
February 21, 2010
A 2008 immigration raid in Iowa separated women from their children through arrest and deportation with, some say, the children's fate left to chance. An immigration official refutes that, saying women with children were released on humanitarian grounds.
POSTVILLE, Iowa (WOMENSENEWS)--Consuelo Vega, a mother of three, lived and worked in this small town surrounded by cornfields for 11 years.
Then in May 2008, she was arrested, jailed for five months and deported to Mexico following a massive, military-style immigration raid at a Kosher meat processing plant.
Vega's three children remained behind in the care of her older daughter, San Lopez, who was 18 and worked part time at a local bakery while raising her infant son.
Overnight, after her mother's deportation, Lopez's responsibilities multiplied as she took charge of her 12-year-old brother Pedro Lopez and 8-year-old sister Samantha Lopez.
"How many nights I could not sleep wondering what we were going to do the next day," she said. "I had to act like nothing was wrong to help my sister and brother but I was also depressed."
A study by the nonpartisan Urban Institute, based in Washington, D.C., found that for every two immigrants apprehended, one child is left behind.
Potentially thousands of parents and children have been separated as a result of immigration enforcement activities and millions more may be at risk, the researchers said. Two-thirds of the children affected are U.S. citizens or legal residents.
Carl Rusnok, spokesperson for U.S. ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Central Region, said 62 of the nearly 400 arrested in the Postville raid were released on humanitarian grounds, mainly because they were the only caregivers for their children.
"ICE agents at that site and all sites take extraordinary measures to determine if any of those arrested are sole caregivers," Rusnok said.
At the time of her arrest, Vega worked 12-to-16 hour days, six days a week, butchering cattle at Agriprocessors Inc. She earned $6.25 an hour, less than Iowa's hourly minimum wage of $7.25.
When U.S. immigration agents stormed the plant on May 12, 2008, arresting Vega and hundreds of other mostly Mexican and Guatemalan workers, Vega told them she had no children because she feared they would be imprisoned and deported too.
'No One Would Listen'
Shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles and bused 90 miles to the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo for arraignment, Vega later tried to tell immigration officials that she had three children at home. No one would listen, her daughter said.
ICE's Rusnok doubts that could have happened. "During Postville and all our operations we repeatedly ask …whether they have medical issues, sole caregiver issues or any other issues that might cause them to be released on humanitarian grounds," he said.
Lopez said that with no means of communicating with her family for weeks, her mother began an odyssey through a series of detention centers scattered from Leavenworth, Kan., to Tallahassee, Fla., before her deportation to Mexico five months later.
About 40 other mothers arrested during the raid on Agriprocessors had GPS-like devices strapped to their ankles so ICE agents could monitor their movements. The devices caused bruising but could not be removed. It took two hours a day to charge them from an electrical wall outlet.
Often the only breadwinner in the family, the detained mothers were not permitted to work or to leave the state.
"It is a horrible life we are living now," said Maria Ruiz, 33, who came to Postville from Guatemala 11 years ago. The single mother of a 6-year-old U.S.-born son earned $7.25 an hour working in the frigid meat packaging area at Agriprocessors.
Relying on Church Charity
Since her arrest, Ruiz and her son, along with many other detainees and their children, have relied on local Catholic and Lutheran churches to pay for their food, housing, medical and other expenses.
ICE's Rusnok said the women had alternatives. Had they not contested their deportation, they would have been sent to their country of origin and not had to depend on charity. "It is something they chose to do themselves," he said.
http://www.womensenews.org/story/immigration/100219/deportation-mothers-in-iowa-tests-local-charity
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Novato Family Fights Deportation
By Jim Welte
Contra Costa Times
10/11/2009
As a boy, Gilbert Mejia-Perez of Novato went to work with his father Salvador, a carpenter. He learned the tools of the trade, but as Mejia-Perez got older, he developed higher aspirations. Instead of helping to build and remodel homes, he wanted to design them himself. Now 18 and in his first semester at Santa Rosa Junior College, Mejia-Perez is on his way to fulfilling his dream.
But barring an unforeseen reversal from immigration officials, Mejia-Perez will be pursuing that dream in Guatemala, the country he left with his parents when he was 1 year old.
Despite a community letter-writing campaign to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Mejia-Perez's parents are set to be deported at the end of this month. The parents were granted a last-minute delay from their original Oct. 13 deadline in order to testify at their son's deportation hearing Oct. 22.
When they leave the United States, the parents will take their two other children, Helen and Dulce, both of whom were born in Marin and are U.S. citizens.
Marc Van Der Hout, a San Francisco immigration attorney who has handled the Novato family's case, said that while families deal with deportation all the time in California, their situation was an exception.
"An immigration judge found that the family met the very high standards of showing that it would be an exceptional hardship to have the parents deported," he said. "This extraordinary finding sets it apart from almost all of the other cases."
Salvador Mejia and Elida Perez, along with 1-year-old Gilbert, crossed the Mexican border more than 17 years ago; Salvador was looking for opportunity as a carpenter and Elida as a housekeeper and caregiver. They ended up in the Canal area of San Rafael, and in 2002, they bought a home on Alameda del Prado in Novato.
"We are honest people, we are hard workers and we have children who need to stay here," Perez said. "My kids are very good students and their dreams are to finish school and go to college and university. We own a house here. We've made our life here."
But to Immigration and Customers Enforcement officials, the family's case is clear cut: They have been in the U.S. illegally the entire time, and have never acquired green cards to become permanent legal residents. In order to do that, they would have had to be petitioned for a green card by an employer or close relative or seek asylum or refugee status.
"Mejia-Reyes had ample access to due process," an ICE spokesman said in a statement regarding Salvador's case. "His immigration case has undergone exhaustive review by judges at all levels of our legal system and the courts have consistently held that the couple does not have a legal basis to remain in the United States. É If the immigration courts find that a person has no legal basis to be in this country, it is ICE's responsibility to see that the court's decision is carried out."
The family's saga began in March 2007, when federal agents raided their home in a case of mistaken identity. Although they were looking for someone else, they determined that the parents and Gilbert Mejia-Perez were in the U.S. illegally. They detained Salvador Mejia and initiated removal proceedings for his wife and son.
In October 2007, an immigration judge in San Francisco granted the parents "cancellation of removal," which would have provided them permanent residence status. The judge determined that their deportation would impose too great a hardship on their daughters, Helen, 13, and Dulce, 4. The family said that Dulce is chronically underweight and has trouble swallowing food, while Helen was diagnosed with depression- and anxiety-related disorders after the 2007 raid.
The Department of Homeland Security appealed the immigration judge's decision, and in March 2008, the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the original decision. The family's subsequent appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was dismissed in May 2009.
Since then Mejia, 39, Perez, 40, and 18-year-old Gilbert have had to wear ankle bracelets that monitor their whereabouts. The trio must make thrice-weekly trips to the ICE office in San Francisco to check in, and an agency official visits them at their home once a week.
"They treat you like a criminal," Elida Perez said. "We haven't made one mistake."
As the Oct. 13 deadline approached, Van Der Hout sought to have Feinstein draft private legislation that would provide amnesty for the family. But Feinstein reviewed the case last week and decided against doing so, her office confirmed. Feinstein's office declined to comment on the specifics of the case.
Feinstein's decision came despite an extensive letter-writing campaign to her office organized by friends and family. Michelle DeBerge, a women's divorce and breakup coach, has employed Perez as a housekeeper for several years.
"She's like family to me," she said. "I can't believe this is happening. I just feel like crying. We've tried so hard and it's been wonderful the amount of support we've gotten. It's so disheartening and heartbreaking that Senator Feinstein is not willing to sign a private bill for them. But I'm not giving up hope."
Van Der Hout worked on a separate strategy, trying to get immigration officials to delay the parents' deportation. Mejia-Perez's lawyer subpoenaed the parents to appear at his deportation hearing, convincing immigrations officials to delay their deportation to allow them to testify. But the family has yet to attain anything more than a delay of the inevitable.
"We're hoping that Senator Feinstein and Immigration and Customs Enforcement change their mind," Van Der Hout said. "We're not giving up complete hope, but it is looking most likely that they will have to leave."
In the meantime, the family is preparing for the worst. Perez said that they don't intend to sell their home, but will pass power of attorney status onto a family friend in order to possibly rent it out while they sort out their legal options. With his parents' fate all but determined, Gilbert Mejia-Perez said he plans to speak out at his own deportation hearing.
"I will tell the judge that I have the right as a human to pursue my dreams and goals and that every person has the right to pursue happiness," he said. "I am attending college right now and I have a lot of things going on that I can't leave behind."
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_13542300
Contra Costa Times
10/11/2009
As a boy, Gilbert Mejia-Perez of Novato went to work with his father Salvador, a carpenter. He learned the tools of the trade, but as Mejia-Perez got older, he developed higher aspirations. Instead of helping to build and remodel homes, he wanted to design them himself. Now 18 and in his first semester at Santa Rosa Junior College, Mejia-Perez is on his way to fulfilling his dream.
But barring an unforeseen reversal from immigration officials, Mejia-Perez will be pursuing that dream in Guatemala, the country he left with his parents when he was 1 year old.
Despite a community letter-writing campaign to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Mejia-Perez's parents are set to be deported at the end of this month. The parents were granted a last-minute delay from their original Oct. 13 deadline in order to testify at their son's deportation hearing Oct. 22.
When they leave the United States, the parents will take their two other children, Helen and Dulce, both of whom were born in Marin and are U.S. citizens.
Marc Van Der Hout, a San Francisco immigration attorney who has handled the Novato family's case, said that while families deal with deportation all the time in California, their situation was an exception.
"An immigration judge found that the family met the very high standards of showing that it would be an exceptional hardship to have the parents deported," he said. "This extraordinary finding sets it apart from almost all of the other cases."
Salvador Mejia and Elida Perez, along with 1-year-old Gilbert, crossed the Mexican border more than 17 years ago; Salvador was looking for opportunity as a carpenter and Elida as a housekeeper and caregiver. They ended up in the Canal area of San Rafael, and in 2002, they bought a home on Alameda del Prado in Novato.
"We are honest people, we are hard workers and we have children who need to stay here," Perez said. "My kids are very good students and their dreams are to finish school and go to college and university. We own a house here. We've made our life here."
But to Immigration and Customers Enforcement officials, the family's case is clear cut: They have been in the U.S. illegally the entire time, and have never acquired green cards to become permanent legal residents. In order to do that, they would have had to be petitioned for a green card by an employer or close relative or seek asylum or refugee status.
"Mejia-Reyes had ample access to due process," an ICE spokesman said in a statement regarding Salvador's case. "His immigration case has undergone exhaustive review by judges at all levels of our legal system and the courts have consistently held that the couple does not have a legal basis to remain in the United States. É If the immigration courts find that a person has no legal basis to be in this country, it is ICE's responsibility to see that the court's decision is carried out."
The family's saga began in March 2007, when federal agents raided their home in a case of mistaken identity. Although they were looking for someone else, they determined that the parents and Gilbert Mejia-Perez were in the U.S. illegally. They detained Salvador Mejia and initiated removal proceedings for his wife and son.
In October 2007, an immigration judge in San Francisco granted the parents "cancellation of removal," which would have provided them permanent residence status. The judge determined that their deportation would impose too great a hardship on their daughters, Helen, 13, and Dulce, 4. The family said that Dulce is chronically underweight and has trouble swallowing food, while Helen was diagnosed with depression- and anxiety-related disorders after the 2007 raid.
The Department of Homeland Security appealed the immigration judge's decision, and in March 2008, the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the original decision. The family's subsequent appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was dismissed in May 2009.
Since then Mejia, 39, Perez, 40, and 18-year-old Gilbert have had to wear ankle bracelets that monitor their whereabouts. The trio must make thrice-weekly trips to the ICE office in San Francisco to check in, and an agency official visits them at their home once a week.
"They treat you like a criminal," Elida Perez said. "We haven't made one mistake."
As the Oct. 13 deadline approached, Van Der Hout sought to have Feinstein draft private legislation that would provide amnesty for the family. But Feinstein reviewed the case last week and decided against doing so, her office confirmed. Feinstein's office declined to comment on the specifics of the case.
Feinstein's decision came despite an extensive letter-writing campaign to her office organized by friends and family. Michelle DeBerge, a women's divorce and breakup coach, has employed Perez as a housekeeper for several years.
"She's like family to me," she said. "I can't believe this is happening. I just feel like crying. We've tried so hard and it's been wonderful the amount of support we've gotten. It's so disheartening and heartbreaking that Senator Feinstein is not willing to sign a private bill for them. But I'm not giving up hope."
Van Der Hout worked on a separate strategy, trying to get immigration officials to delay the parents' deportation. Mejia-Perez's lawyer subpoenaed the parents to appear at his deportation hearing, convincing immigrations officials to delay their deportation to allow them to testify. But the family has yet to attain anything more than a delay of the inevitable.
"We're hoping that Senator Feinstein and Immigration and Customs Enforcement change their mind," Van Der Hout said. "We're not giving up complete hope, but it is looking most likely that they will have to leave."
In the meantime, the family is preparing for the worst. Perez said that they don't intend to sell their home, but will pass power of attorney status onto a family friend in order to possibly rent it out while they sort out their legal options. With his parents' fate all but determined, Gilbert Mejia-Perez said he plans to speak out at his own deportation hearing.
"I will tell the judge that I have the right as a human to pursue my dreams and goals and that every person has the right to pursue happiness," he said. "I am attending college right now and I have a lot of things going on that I can't leave behind."
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_13542300
Monday, June 22, 2009
Deporting Fathers in the Name of Homeland Security
New America Media, Commentary
Joseph Nevins
Jun 21, 2009
As families celebrate Father’s Day, consider the case of Roxroy Salmon. The father of four U.S.-born children, Salmon has lived in the United States for more than 30 years. Yet the Department of Homeland Security now threatens to deport him to Jamaica, a country where he has not resided for decades, due to minor drug convictions from more than 19 years ago for which he served no time. This would effectively deny his children their father by permanently exiling him from his family and their common homeland.
Salmon’s story is hardly exceptional. Each year the federal government deports tens of thousands of non-citizens, many of them with U.S. citizen children, to countries to which they often have tenuous ties. By doing this, the federal government seriously injures children and families, and produces large numbers of a particular type of refugee.
With immigration reform on the table once again, we must restore basic human rights protections to would-be deportees and their children. This would help reverse the massive growth in deportations and divided families brought about by increasingly harsh immigration policing.
According to a report published in April by Human Rights Watch, deportations separated more than one million family members in the United States from a parent or spouse between 1997 and 2007. More than 70 percent of them were the result of non-violent criminal offenses, including possession of marijuana or traffic violations. One-fifth involved individuals who were lawfully present in the United States, sometimes for decades.
The vast majority of the deportees have been undocumented immigrants. An estimated five million children of unauthorized immigrants reside in the United States, more than three million of whom are U.S. citizens. By deporting many of their parents, according to a report released in March by the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney for the Urban Institute, the federal government is doing long-term damage—financial, emotional, psychological, behavioral and educational—to American children.
Although U.S. immigration law allows migrants to apply to cancel a deportation order, the standards are such that obtaining relief is “virtually impossible,” asserts Dorsey & Whitney. This renders the rights and interests of the children of individuals threatened with deportation, according to the report, “all but irrelevant.”
The result is that “citizen children increasingly find themselves separated from one or both parents, or effectively deported with their parents.” In both cases, the deportation apparatus compels parents to make a heart-wrenching choice.
One option is to divide the family by keeping their children in the United States. Another is to decide to keep the family together by uprooting their children from a community and lifestyle that is all they have ever known. In doing so, they often expose the children to socio-economic deprivation given the frequently under-resourced nature of deportees’ “home” countries.
Under both options, the outcome for families is to effectively turn them into refugees. By deporting parents and, often by extension, their children, the federal government is driving them from what is, for all intents and purposes, their homeland.
International human rights conventions indicate that a country cannot deport a non-citizen without carefully considering the violation of any rights. Among a state’s obligations—one affirmed in U.S. law—is to give primary consideration to the “best interests” of children who might be impacted.
In this spirit, international human rights conventions assert a fundamental right to live together with close family members, including minor children. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld “the right to live together as a family,” calling it in 1977 an “enduring American tradition,” while noting that the right to raise one’s child has been deemed a basic civil right, one “far more precious than property rights.”
Nonetheless, Washington has upended the rights of families with immigrant members and their children through legislation signed by Bill Clinton in 1996. Adopted in the name of antiterrorism, crime-fighting, and national security, these laws—which mandate deportation for a host of legal transgressions no matter when they were committed—deny discretion to judges with rare exceptions.
Passage of the Child Citizen Protection Act (H.R. 182) would provide some significant relief. Introduced by Representative José Serrano, D-N.Y., the bill would allow immigration judges to consider the “best interests” of U.S. citizen children in deportation cases. Such consideration might prevent the Department of Homeland Security from exiling Roxroy Salmon, and denying his children their father. It would also provide some substance to the “family values” rhetorically embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=5d6d2f1d4d7f88a42458324fbf903e28
Joseph Nevins
Jun 21, 2009
As families celebrate Father’s Day, consider the case of Roxroy Salmon. The father of four U.S.-born children, Salmon has lived in the United States for more than 30 years. Yet the Department of Homeland Security now threatens to deport him to Jamaica, a country where he has not resided for decades, due to minor drug convictions from more than 19 years ago for which he served no time. This would effectively deny his children their father by permanently exiling him from his family and their common homeland.
Salmon’s story is hardly exceptional. Each year the federal government deports tens of thousands of non-citizens, many of them with U.S. citizen children, to countries to which they often have tenuous ties. By doing this, the federal government seriously injures children and families, and produces large numbers of a particular type of refugee.
With immigration reform on the table once again, we must restore basic human rights protections to would-be deportees and their children. This would help reverse the massive growth in deportations and divided families brought about by increasingly harsh immigration policing.
According to a report published in April by Human Rights Watch, deportations separated more than one million family members in the United States from a parent or spouse between 1997 and 2007. More than 70 percent of them were the result of non-violent criminal offenses, including possession of marijuana or traffic violations. One-fifth involved individuals who were lawfully present in the United States, sometimes for decades.
The vast majority of the deportees have been undocumented immigrants. An estimated five million children of unauthorized immigrants reside in the United States, more than three million of whom are U.S. citizens. By deporting many of their parents, according to a report released in March by the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney for the Urban Institute, the federal government is doing long-term damage—financial, emotional, psychological, behavioral and educational—to American children.
Although U.S. immigration law allows migrants to apply to cancel a deportation order, the standards are such that obtaining relief is “virtually impossible,” asserts Dorsey & Whitney. This renders the rights and interests of the children of individuals threatened with deportation, according to the report, “all but irrelevant.”
The result is that “citizen children increasingly find themselves separated from one or both parents, or effectively deported with their parents.” In both cases, the deportation apparatus compels parents to make a heart-wrenching choice.
One option is to divide the family by keeping their children in the United States. Another is to decide to keep the family together by uprooting their children from a community and lifestyle that is all they have ever known. In doing so, they often expose the children to socio-economic deprivation given the frequently under-resourced nature of deportees’ “home” countries.
Under both options, the outcome for families is to effectively turn them into refugees. By deporting parents and, often by extension, their children, the federal government is driving them from what is, for all intents and purposes, their homeland.
International human rights conventions indicate that a country cannot deport a non-citizen without carefully considering the violation of any rights. Among a state’s obligations—one affirmed in U.S. law—is to give primary consideration to the “best interests” of children who might be impacted.
In this spirit, international human rights conventions assert a fundamental right to live together with close family members, including minor children. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld “the right to live together as a family,” calling it in 1977 an “enduring American tradition,” while noting that the right to raise one’s child has been deemed a basic civil right, one “far more precious than property rights.”
Nonetheless, Washington has upended the rights of families with immigrant members and their children through legislation signed by Bill Clinton in 1996. Adopted in the name of antiterrorism, crime-fighting, and national security, these laws—which mandate deportation for a host of legal transgressions no matter when they were committed—deny discretion to judges with rare exceptions.
Passage of the Child Citizen Protection Act (H.R. 182) would provide some significant relief. Introduced by Representative José Serrano, D-N.Y., the bill would allow immigration judges to consider the “best interests” of U.S. citizen children in deportation cases. Such consideration might prevent the Department of Homeland Security from exiling Roxroy Salmon, and denying his children their father. It would also provide some substance to the “family values” rhetorically embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=5d6d2f1d4d7f88a42458324fbf903e28
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