Deportations leave siblings on their own
Erick Alcala only remembers the flashlights, beaming into his room as immigration agents searched the house.
Alcala, aU.S.-born citizen, was 7 when his parents were deported.
“They came early in the morning, the sun wasn’t even up yet,” Alcala, 19, said recently from his sister’s home in San Antonio. He is the only member of his family born in the U.S. “They started searching the house to see if there was anybody else.”
It was the second week of September 2008. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had learned his parents had been living undocumented in Rio Alto, Calif., for more than a decade.
He said howthey found out “is still a mystery.” But his family’s story reflects an issue that has spanned multiple administrations: the separation of family members from U.S. citizens.
“Theymiss somuch of our life. It’s really sad for them and it’s hard for us,” Alcala said.
More than 4 million U.S. citizen children live with parents who are not in the country legally, according to a survey from 2009 to 2013 conducted by the Migration Policy Institute. Of all
children in Texas then, some 13 percent had parents not here legally, the institute found — the second highest rate in the country. Both numbers likely have increased since 2013.
Several immigration reform bills that would have protected
citizens’ parents from deportation over the years have stalled in Congress.
When former President Barack Obama introduced the Deferred Action for Parent Arrivals and Legal Permanent Residents program, or DAPA, to provide
status for the parents of citizen or legal resident children, it was blocked in court.
President-elect Joe Biden has said he would introduce an immigration reform bill within his first 100 days in office.
Children of deported parents face a number of obstacles. In one study cited by the American Immigration Council, family income dropped about 70 percent after a member’s deportation.
Some deported parents bring their citizen children with them — in 2010, nearly a half-million U.S.born children lived in Mexico, an MPI estimate with theUrban Institute says.
Alcala was one of them.
His father, Jesús Alcala, said ICE agents put chains on hiswaist that day in 2008 as they escorted him from his house into ICE custody. Jesús Alcala was taken by bus across the border to Tijuana while Erick Alcala’s aunt drove him there to meet his father.
They both flew fromTijuana to Morelia, the family’s hometown.
Erick Alcala’s mom, Ma. Consuelo, was fitted with an ankle monitor. She was given 12 weeks in California to sell the family’s possessions and make arrangements with her daughters before she was deported, too.
Erick’s two sisters, Janet and Cindy, who were undocumented at the time, stayed behind.
They were 17 and 22 and left to navigate the rest of their upbringing alone. Both sisters currently
work at child migrant shelters run by the federal government in San Antonio. They asked that their full names be withheld in compliance with their workplace regulations.
The sisters lived in fear for years after their parents were deported. The possibility of deportation was real to them.
At one point, fear and financial struggle overcame Janet. She decided to leave for Mexico — and then at the last minute changed her mind and canceled her flight.
“Over there you go to a restaurant maybe once a month, for a fancy (occasion). Over there you have one car, per family, and that’s if you’re well-off,” Alcala said.
When he was in Mexico, he would receive gifts and clothes around Christmastime donated by U.S. church members. Now, in San Antonio, he and his sisters contribute to those donation drives.
In 2015, after Alcala finished eighth grade, the family decided to send him back to theU.S. to live with his sisters.
Janet and Cindy had become financially stable enough to support him and wanted him to take advantage of his citizenship to get a quality education. He attended Clark and Lee high schools.
“Erick, you were so blessed for being a U.S. citizen,” Cindy, 34, told him recently.
Now 30, Janet is a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, recipient. Cindy became a U.S. citizen last year through marriage.
TheAlcalas only have one family photo together, taken in 2006, two years before the parentswere deported. After a required10-year wait, the couple applied for permission to re-enter the U.S.
“Yes, I have a better life now, but it’s like, my parents aren’t here,” Alcala said. “You want to live with your parents, but then if you do live over there, what kind of life are you going to have?”
All three siblings send money back to their parents every month. In Morelia, the Alcalas own a small shop at a colorful, indoor marketplace similar to Market Square in San Antonio.
Alcala graduated from Northwest Vista College this year with an associate’s degree in business administration. He starts at the University ofTexas at San Antonio in January. He won a Dell scholarship, which paid for his tuition. He wants to be a banker.
As a citizen, Alcala was able to visit his parents in Mexico for Christmas.
But Janet, the DACA recipient, had to stay behind. It’s been 12 years since she’s seen her parents in person.