Families’ legal status often a tangled web
LAS CRUCES — Nayeli remembers crossing the border as an 8-year-old girl: She and her mother boarded an inflatable raft that ferried people back and forth beneath the international bridge in downtown El Paso.
Above, the official port of entry for people with visas. Below, the unofficial entry point for those without.
It was 1991, and the illegal ferry traffic in broad daylight between the concrete banks of the canal dividing El Paso from Ciudad Juárez was so prevalent, so tolerated, that to a young girl it didn’t seem illegal at all. A Border Patrol spokesman told the Journal the illegal raft rides used to cost 50 cents one way.
Nayeli’s mother, Ana María, intended for the two of them to visit family in New Mexico and then head back to her home and husband in central Mexico.
Circumstances intervened. Ana María discovered she was pregnant; she stayed on. Her daughter was born with a cleft palate and needed medical care. She stayed longer. Her husband decided to join his family. He crossed legally with a visa, then overstayed it.
Today, the family’s story adds up to a complicated web of unresolved immigration statuses in which, except for the U.S.-born generation, no two situations are alike.
Politicians speak of the nation’s estimated 11 million “undocumented” immigrants, but that term breeds the misconception that immigrants are here either legally or illegally, when immigration status is rarely blackand-white.
Many immigrant families, especially in New Mexico’s border region, live in a gray zone in which relatives have each applied under different circumstances to bring their status into compliance. Nationwide, from 2009 to 2013, 4.1 million U.S. citizen children were living with an unauthorized immigrant parent, according to Pew Research.
But while they wait for the U.S. government to respond to their petitions, Nayeli said, she, her mother and father could all be at risk of deportation under President Donald Trump’s expanded immigration enforcement policies. The Department of Homeland Security says it’s targeting criminals but defines that category to include not just people convicted of violent crimes but also anyone who has ever broken or is suspected of breaking any law.
Crossing the border illegally is a federal crime; so is working with false documents.
On the February morning that reports began circulating of “raids” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, Nayeli’s phone started ringing. It was members of a close-knit group of undocumented immigrants, their relatives and allies in southern New Mexico and West Texas called the Border Network for Human Rights.
She was home from her job as caregiver for elders, and a member of the network wanted to know: Could she document the operation that was happening at a trailer park not far from her home? Nayeli said, “Yes.”
“I have always taught my kids not to live in fear,” Nayeli said. “I have learned how to defend myself extremely well. If I get taken in, it’s only going to speed up my process to see the judge.”
Nayeli, now a 33-year-old mother of three U.S. citizen children — ages 14, 11 and 6 — has been waiting two years for an immigration judge to hear her case. She has applied for legal permanent residency through a provision of the Violence Against Women Act.
There is no telling how long the wait will be; the backlog of cases in the nation’s immigration courts recently topped 534,000, and waits to see a judge have stretched into years.
Nayeli’s mother and father are seeking legal status through their now 22-year-old second daughter, a U.S. citizen who also has power of attorney over Nayeli’s children. If Nayeli is arrested, her children’s schools and doctors know her sister. Her mother, who speaks little English, knows exactly what to do if she is the one who is arrested.
“My mom knows to call her daughter,” Nayeli said. “She knows she has to have certain information — what agency picked her up, where they are taking her; she knows not to sign anything.”
“For my family, it’s been a plan that’s been happening for many years,” she said. “Since my sister turned 18, she has been able to make any legal decisions over my children, which is horrible. Sometimes I think it is a lot of responsibility for somebody so young.”
Nayeli’s own children have grown up with these sorts of “what if” discussions, and she says they worry about her a lot.
“Some people don’t realize that by deporting so many people, the ones who will be affected most are the children,” she said. “It makes me nervous to talk about it, but it’s the truth.”
UpFront is a regular Journal news and opinion column. Comment directly to Journal staff writer Lauren Villagran at lvillagran@abqjournal.com. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.