Houses Divided. New state laws and the failure of immigration reform are taking a heavy toll on
children and families.
By Escalona, Alejandro.
Carlos Rodriguez has been receiving letters and brochures from colleges and universities from
across the country encouraging him to apply because of his outstanding grades in an Alabama high
school. He dreams of the day he can start college next year. But Rodriguez has two problems. For
starters, he is an undocumented student, which limits his college options because he does not
qualify for federal and state financial aid. And Rodriguez' family is considering leaving Alabama for
good--either relocating to another state or even going back to Costa Rica, where he and his parents
were born.
The family agreed to be interviewed over the phone on the condition their real names weren't
used. They also asked not to reveal the name of the town where they live for fear the police or the
immigration authorities might come to their house to arrest them.
Thousands of undocumented immigrants have left Alabama since the state enacted the
toughest immigration law in the country in late September 2011. Arizona, Georgia, Utah, South
Carolina, and Indiana have passed their own immigration laws, but none included provisions as
harsh as those approved in Alabama. Among the most controversial aspects of the law is a provision
requiring schools to check students' immigration status.
In October a federal judge temporarily blocked the school requirement and another provision of
the law, but upheld others--including the one that requires police to check the immigration status of
suspected undocumented immigrants during routine traffic stops.
Another judge had previously blocked another controversial provision that had led to a lawsuit
by a coalition of Alabama church leaders. That section of the law, the churches argued, would make
it illegal to celebrate the sacraments with or provide social services for undocumented immigrants.
In an August 19 statement explaining why he had joined the lawsuit, Archbishop Thomas Rodi
of Mobile said, "Once immigrants are in our midst, the church has a moral obligation, intrinsic to the
living out of our faith, to be Christ-like to everyone.… This new law prevents us as believers from
exercising our life of faith as commanded by the Lord Jesus."
Rodriguez' family has lived in a town near Montgomery for nearly 15 years. His parents, Ignacio
and Delia, emigrated from Costa Rica with Carlos and his younger brother, Luis, looking for a better
life. They overstayed on their tourist visas and have lived in the same town since they arrived. The
couple has worked in factories and cleaned houses. They also have a 13-year-old son, Arturo, who is
a U.S. citizen born in Alabama.
The Rodriguezes say that many of their neighbors have already left because of the fear of
being stopped by police and deported. Luis, their second son, plays soccer in school and says that
many Latino players have stopped showing up because their families are afraid to drive or have left
town.
"Our sons have lived in Alabama practically all their lives," Delia says, explaining why they
haven't left yet. "They consider themselves from here. They don't know any other place."
The couple still hopes that the new law will be blocked completely and that next year Congress
will pass an immigration reform bill that would allow them to stay in the country.
"Now we live in fear--hoping the police don't stop us while driving our kids to school or going to
work," says Ignacio.
According to many news reports, Alabama farmers have complained that their harvests have
rotted and they now face business failures because not enough American workers are willing to work
in the fields.
"For us, it's all about survival. That's just the bottom line, folks. Without a viable labor source,
we cannot survive," Jeremy Calvert, a vegetable farmer, was quoted on the PBS NewsHour last
October.
For the Rodriguezes there are other severe social repercussions. They say that immigrants do
not trust the police anymore, and immigrant kids face suspicion and derogatory comments at school.
"The law is having a terrible impact on people's lives," Delia says.
Under pressure
The failure of federal immigration reform efforts has prompted many states to address the
controversial issue of illegal immigration on their own terms. In 2009,1,500 immigration bills were
considered. Arizona, Georgia, Utah, South Carolina, and Indiana have taken a harsh approach to
dealing with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the United Sates.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has deported nearly 1 million undocumented immigrants.
In October Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that in fiscal year 2011 (which
ended in September) a record
396,906 people had been deported, nearly 25 percent more than the Bush administration
deported in 2007.
As a result, thousands of immigrant families have been torn apart. Enforcement-alone policies
have spread fear and mistrust in immigrant communities across the country.
On Dec. 12,2011, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico and the
Americas, the nation's 33 Hispanic Catholic bishops released a "letter to immigrants" that asks
Americans to recognize the contributions of undocumented immigrants. It was not the first time the
U.S. Catholic bishops have come out in support of comprehensive immigration reform and a path to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
"We are well aware of the great sacrifice you make for your families' well-being," the letter
says. "Despite your contributions to… our country, instead of receiving our thanks, you are often
treated as criminals because you have violated current immigration laws." In the letter the bishops
tell undocumented immigrants: "You are not alone, or forgotten. … We open our arms and hearts to
you, and we receive you as members of our Catholic family."
Caught in the web
Time ran out for Army Spec. Hector Nuñez, his wife, Rosa, and their two small children. Rosa's
one-year humanitarian visa expired on Dec. 19,2011. Their lawyer has applied for an extension.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, a humanitarian visa can only be extended
for one year at a time.
Nuñez, a combat engineer with the National Guard, served six months in Kuwait in 2007. Rosa,
27, came to Chicago with her family illegally when she was a child. Some of her siblings have since
become citizens or legal residents, but she did not qualify.
"My wife grew up as an American," Nuñez says. "She should be allowed to stay in the country
she calls home with her husband and kids."
Rosa and Hector have been married for six years. She delivered their second son at the end of
November.
In 2010, following the bad advice of a lawyer, the couple traveled to Ciudad Juarez for an
interview at the U.S. Consulate to resolve Rosa's legal status, as she was married to a U.S. citizen.
Instead, she was barred for 10 years from returning.
Nuñez, who at the time was going to be deployed to Afghanistan, was desperate and sought
the assistance of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois), who obtained a one-year humanitarian visa for
Rosa on Dec. 20,2010.
Last July the couple and their son attended a rally in Chicago to urge President Barack Obama
to stop deporting noncriminal immigrants through the controversial federal program Secure
Communities. Although designed to identify and remove undocumented immigrants who are "the
most serious criminal offenders," the program had instead primarily led to the deportation of people
who had committed minor offenses such as traffic violations.
Holding their son in his arms and standing next to Rosa, Nuñez told the crowd of several
hundred that their case was an example of how a broken immigration system separates families.
The following month the Obama administration announced new guidelines to unclog the
immigration courts by prioritizing the deportations of convicted immigrant offenders according to the
gravity of their offense and allowing low-priority offenders to remain in the country and apply for a
work permit. That decision followed mounting criticism of the Secure Communities program, with
Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts pulling out of it.
In a Sept. 29, 2011 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Archbishop José H.
Gomez of Los Angeles applauded the administration's new guidelines for "low-priority" deportation
cases. Gomez, the chairman of the bishops' Committee on Migration, specifically urged stays of
deportation, among others, for children who were brought to the United States at a young age and
for "those with long-term presence in the United States and other equities, such as U.S. citizen
children or spouses."
"My wife has been in the United States most of her life and she has never been in trouble with
the law," says Nuñez. "But she is being treated worse than a criminal. There are people who actually
commit crimes, and they are slapped on the wrist. I just don't think that she is being treated fairly."
Nuñez explains that it was very hard when his wife had to stay in Mexico for six months and
that he cannot imagine her being away for 10 years.
"It would be devastating for our family," says Nuñez. "We don't want to think of the possibility
of our kids growing up without their mother."
In January the Obama administration announced its intention to change another immigration
rule that would help the Nunezes and many other American citizens with undocumented immigrant
spouses and children. The change would allow them to stay in the United States while applying for
hardship waivers, the first step in their applications for legal residency. With such a waiver Rosa
would not have been barred from reentering the country for 10 years.
Separation anxiety
Josefina Sanchez and Clara Figueroa's story is part of an alarming new trend: thousands of
children placed in foster care because their parents have been either detained or deported. Sanchez
and Figueroa (not their real names) are sisters who were detained in the summer of 2010 at their
trailer home in a small town in New Mexico when the authorities responded to a false drugtrafficking tip.
The authorities did not find any drugs but arrested both sisters because they were
undocumented immigrants. Child Protective Services (CPS) took custody of the three young children
who lived with them.
During the four months that they were in ICE custody, Sanchez and Figueroa did not know
where their children were. In December 2010 both sisters were deported to Mexico while their kids
remained in foster care.
A year after being deported, Sanchez expressed her distress during a phone interview from
Mexico. She and her sister did not want to talk directly to the media but related their story through a
representative of the Applied Research Center, a think tank based in New York that has documented
their story.
"I didn't know where my child was. I didn't do anything wrong to have my child taken away
from me," said Sanchez, whose baby was only 9 months old when she was arrested. Figueroa's
children were 1 and 6 years old at the time she was detained and deported.
According to the Applied Research Center's recent report Shattered Families, the federal
government removed more than 46,000 mothers and fathers of U.S. citizen children in the first six
months of 2011. The center estimates that there are 5,100 children in foster care whose parents
have been either detained or deported. There are approximately 5.5 million children in the country
who have an undocumented parent, and about 4.5 million of those children were born in the United
States.
In their pastoral letter to immigrants the Latino U.S. bishops say of the impact of family
separation due to deportation: "This situation cries out to God for a worthy and humane solution."
For a year Figueroa and Sanchez feared their parental rights would be terminated. In
September the Mexican consulate in New Mexico phoned the sisters in Michoacán and told them to
go to the airport the next day. There Mexican officials escorted the three children off the plane. After
14 months apart, the sisters were finally reunited with their children.
"Though child welfare departments are required by law to try to reunify children with their
parents--and research shows that children fare better with their families--that principle is often
ignored when a border stands in the way," says Seth Wessler, senior research associate with the
Applied Research Center.
Wessler adds that deportation too often leads to the termination of parental rights. In
jurisdictions around the country, child welfare departments and children's attorneys argue that it is
in a child's best interest to remain in the United States rather than join their parents in another
country.
According to Wessler, counties near the border with Mexico are working to stop the separation
of families. In San Diego County, California and El Paso County, Texas, the child welfare
departments work with the Mexican consulate and the Mexican child welfare department to place
children with their families in Mexico.
Dare to DREAM
The cases of the "dreamers," children whose undocumented parents brought them to the
United States when they were children, provide a compelling argument for immigration reform.
One of those "dreamers" has become a national symbol in the movement to pass a federal
DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act. Arianna Salgado sat between
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the signing ceremony of the Illinois
DREAM Act on Aug. 1,2011.
In her remarks that day, Salgado, a petite 18-year-old undocumented student, electrified the
crowd in the auditorium at Benito Juarez High School on the South Side of Chicago.
Salgado spoke of her dream of getting a college education. When she was a junior in high
school, a school adviser told her she was not going to be able to attend college because her
immigration status did not allow her to get federal financial aid. But now the Illinois DREAM Act will
help students like her to go to college.
"Today we make history as Illinois sends a message across our great nation that every student
deserves to strive regardless of their immigration status," said Salgado.
The "dreamers" have grown up speaking English and consider themselves American. Salgado
came to the United States from Morelos, Mexico with her mother when she was 6 years old.
"When I was a kid, I listened to my relatives talking about immigration and that we should
never tell anybody about our status," recalled Salgado. "My mother and I wished things were
different, but we tried to live as normal a life as possible."
The Illinois DREAM Act created a privately funded scholarship program for undocumented
students. The Illinois law, similar to California's, was signed months after broader federal legislation,
passed by the House in December 2010, died in the Senate because it failed to get the 60 votes
necessary to bring it to the floor.
The federal DREAM Act would have provided permanent residency to the estimated 65,000
undocumented students who graduate from high school each year, having arrived in the United
States as minors, and have lived in the country for at least five years. Since first introduced in 2001,
the bill has faced an uphill battle for approval in Congress. It was reintroduced in the Senate last
May, but again died before reaching the floor.
In a June 28,2011 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the U.S. Catholic bishops
applauded the re-introduction of the DREAM Act in the Senate as an important intermediate step.
"In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, DREAM Act-eligible children are among the
most vulnerable of the unauthorized population in the United States today," Archbishop Gomez
wrote on behalf of the bishops' conference. "We have a choice as a nation: either to ensure that
these capable and patriotic long-term members of U.S. society fulfill their promise and serve our
country or to separate them from their families and communities and return them to nations they do
not know. It is morally incumbent upon us as a nation to choose the former, not the latter."
Salgado and her fellow "dreamers" were disappointed when the federal DREAM Act was
defeated. They had organized an impressive nationwide campaign in support of the legislation,
effectively using the Internet and social media, staging public demonstrations, and visiting
legislators.
Later Salgado joined a national campaign of "dreamers" to publicly acknowledge that they are
here illegally. They held public rallies to proclaim they are "undocumented, unafraid, and
unapologetic."
"People need to put a face on this issue," Salgado explains. "Yes, I am undocumented, but I
am also a daughter and a student."
Salgado is now a freshman at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, where she received
a scholarship to study social work. She says she will continue to work toward an overhaul of the
immigration system.
"We must continue fighting for the dreams and the education of undocumented students so
they can realize their potential," Salgado says.
Sampling of immigration Laws
Alabama
Requires public schools to check students' immigration status (temporarily blocked)
Arizona
Charges immigrants who do not have documentation with a misdemeanor
Georgia
Makes it a crime to transport, entice to enter, and harbor an undocumented immigrant into the state
Indiana
Requires that public meetings be conducted only in English and requires that only English be used
on state documents
South Carolina
Requires that immigrants always carry their federal certificates of registration (temporarily blocked)
Utah
Allows suspected illegal immigrants to be arrested without a warrant
Escalona, Alejandro. "Houses Divided." U.S. Catholic 77.3 (Mar. 2012): 22. MAS Ultra - School
Edition. Web. 2 Apr. 2012.