Parents deported to Guatemala adjust
The Jan. 22, 2010, issue of Catholic San Francisco featured the story of Elida Mejía Perez and Salvador Mejía, members of St. Raphael Parish who had been deported to their native Guatemala the previous November after losing a court fight against a removal order by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Salvador, a carpenter, and Elida, who worked as a caregiver, had left Guatemala in 1992 to start a new life away from their homeland’s political and economic troubles. Guatemala had been scarred by civil war at the time, and many Guatemalans relocated to the United States in hopes of being granted political asylum. The Mejías, like most other Guatemalans on the move from their country, entered the United States without papers. But, fatefully, they arrived late in a long wave of Central American immigrants fleeing civil strife, and the mood in the United States toward welcoming such newcomers was beginning to shift. What’s more, they did not apply for asylum after they arrived.
“We did not have the support of anyone, and we did not know the laws,” Elida said in a phone interview from their home in Quetzaltenango in Guatemala’s western highlands. “We were so scared that we thought that if we talked we were going to be sent back.”
The Mejías were not aware that the new life they were building could be in jeopardy. Politically, the door was closing almost as soon as they entered: in 1996, in a reaction to the immigration reform of the previous decade, the laws of the United States changed to make it far more difficult for an undocumented immigrant to win an exemption from a removal action on the basis of hardship. The call for tighter borders won out over the view that Central American immigrants should be given consideration for the role that U.S. foreign policy played in the civil wars that made them decide it would be better to go north for a new life.
For the Mejías, the consequences of their choices 15 years earlier and of the changing mood in the country they hoped to make their permanent home, combined with plain bad luck, converged in 2007.
ICE agents mistakenly came to their door in Novato with a warrant for someone else, someone the Mejías didn’t know. The agents questioned the couple and arrested them on suspicion of residing in the United States without documentation.
The Mejías spent $30,000 fighting for an exemption but lost on appeal. Ironically, according to Carol Dvorkin, a lawyer familiar with the case, their circumstances would have met the test for an exemption under the more lenient laws that applied before 1996.
“It’s really heartbreaking, and very harsh,” she said.
The Mejías went back to Guatemala with their youngest child, four-year-old Dulce. Their daughter Helen, now 14, a sophomore in high school, stayed back with their son, Gilbert, now 19, who made the journey to the United States with his parents when he was not yet two years old.
ICE also is pursuing a removal case against Gilbert, who is challenging it. Gilbert, who attends Santa Rosa Junior College, has no memory of his birth country and has not been there since his parents left.
The Mejías were deported during an active period for enforcement of the laws to remove undocumented residents. They were among 389,000 undocumented immigrants removed from the United States in 2009, the seventh record high in a row, according to ICE.
ICE Director John Morton mentioned the 2009 figure in an Aug. 26 statement that responded to criticism that the agency is softening its stance on removals of non-criminal undocumented residents. “Too often, political posturing rather than facts dominates the debate surrounding immigration,” he said. “But when you look at the facts, including record-breaking statistics, our record shows this administration is serious about sensible and tough enforcement.”
Still, the number of non-criminal foreign nationals deported in the past year is sharply down from the previous two years. Looking at the trend, one wonders if the Mejias’ fate would have been different if the immigration authorities had remained unaware of their presence for a little while longer.
Catholic San Francisco’s interviews with the Mejías provide a glimpse of the human impact on one family from one of the most stringent aspects of U.S. immigration policy. Excerpts from the interviews follow:
Elida Mejía Perez
Question: How is your financial and economic situation?
Elida: The economic situation is very bad because when we were in the states our dream was to stay there and we had hoped that an immigration reform would be approved. We both worked and we earned enough to survive but we could not save because we purchased a home. Our money was invested and we also had cars. We lived well and we gave our kids what was necessary and we never thought we’d have to go back. The immigration judge had approved our residency but the prosecutor appealed the decision. We paid a lot of money, $30,000 and even our last attorney had to use his own money in our case.
What are you doing at this point?
We live in Quetzaltenango, in the western part of the country where the weather is cold. We work in the fields, a small piece of land we own. My husband is a carpenter but it’s very difficult for him to find work in his profession. Our lot measures five blocks and we plant for our own consumption and we’ll see if at the end of the year we will have corn to make tortillas. Due to the climate we sow the seeds in May and June and we reap and store the yield in October and November. I like to work and over there I’ve learned that I need to work in whatever is at hand. Over there, I used to take care of children and then the elderly. Here in Guatemala I tried to open a tortillería store but it did not work because I was spending too much money. We plant fava beans, regular beans, green peas but we don’t have a job with a fixed income.
How do you see your future?
Right now it is quite uncertain but I trust in God a lot and I do not lose the hope that we will be able to go back. Our lawyer is trying to see if we qualify for a humanitarian visa. Hope is the last thing that can be lost.
What about violence in Guatemala?
The situation is very dangerous. We don’t go out because we are afraid. Recently my brother and my sister-in-law were assaulted. Their M.O. is showing a knife and then taking away all of your belongings. The truth is that we live in fear and we avoid going out. We go early to buy food and then we come back home so that we don’t have to go out at night.
Is there a possibility that you will be able to reunite soon?
That’s what I desire most to be reunited with my children but the lawyer isn’t promising a lot but our children were left behind when they needed us most.
How’s Dulce, your youngest daughter, coming along?
Dulce’s life is quite sad and she’s always asking for her siblings and why we are not there. She’s always saying that she wants to go to school over there and she’s been through changes. Emotionally she has changed; she doesn’t talk much and doesn’t have any close friends only schoolmates.
When she grows up she will go back there without knowing the language and behind in comparison to other kids over there. It’s really sad that being a U.S. citizen she has to live here with us because she has lost the rights that an American citizen has like a good education and good nutrition.
The pediatrician says that Dulce was very underweight and below what kids her age are. In regards to health care she’s only been sick once to her stomach but we can’t go often to see the doctor because there is only one hospital and despite the fact that it is free it’s really difficult to be seen and they don’t allow relatives to go inside.
Are you going to be able to pay for her education?
Public schools are free through the 12th grade but we will have to buy school supplies. We don’t pay tuition fees but we have to pay for everything from pencils, to notebooks, books, etc. The schools are so poor that they have absolutely nothing. It’s difficult to find a library.
Do you think it was a mistake to go the U.S. illegally?
It was not a mistake to go there without any documents… Here in Guatemala there are no opportunities. We left because the political and economic situation of the country was very bad.
Was there a way to obtain legal documents in the U.S.?
We had a chance when we arrived in ’92 since most Guatemalans applied for political asylum, but when we got there we didn’t have the support of anyone and we did not know the laws. We were so scared that we thought that if we talked we were going to be sent back. It is very difficult because you arrive without any money, without knowing the laws and you have to take any job to survive, there is no guidance and everything means money, pay for attorneys. And the truth is you never expect immigration officials to show up at your place.
Who is helping you out?
I have two brothers who are helping us out. May God bless my brothers who are in the U.S.
How do you remember the day you were deported?
It’s very sad to talk about it because despite the fact that we know they don’t want us there one prefers to be there because there is food and you are safe and your life is not in danger. Although they don’t want us there we are human beings and we feel that there is no other way and we need to put up with it. The boy and the girl (Gilbert and Helen) are very good students and their life is not in danger over there. The girl has gotten very depressed and doesn’t talk much and locks herself up. But it is preferable for her to have a good education.
Salvador Mejía
Thanks to God we are doing fine but we are sad because our children are over there, something we have not been able to cope with. It is a trauma that we are unable to overcome. We are trying to find a job but it is difficult. We are peasants.
I am a carpenter but I cannot find a job as such in the countryside. We need capital to start our own business like a carpentry factory. We would have to buy tools, lumber and everything is so expensive. It’s not like before.
We only get some help from my wife’s brothers and we live from some savings that she had. The Church is not like in the U.S. and now after the storm Agata, the situation has gotten worse. It took away plantations and many are those who are victims. The Church is helping those in need so we prefer not to ask for any help because there are those who are worse off.
Fortunately we live in high ground and we were not affected. Other communities were flooded.
Emotionally we are a bit sad when we talk to Gilbert and Helen and if they need something over there we cannot help them, they have to ask help from others. Here Dulce is very sad and is always asking for her siblings and says she doesn’t want to go to school here but over there. She talks to Gilbert and Helen and asks them when they will take her.
Often we experience violence here. There are no authorities. The other day they were persecuting a young man who had stolen something and the community itself was going to lynch him but the police arrived and saved him. When there is an absence of authority people take justice in their own hands. That’s why we prefer not to go out after 5 p.m.
By José Luis Aguirre
Rick DelVecchio contributed to this story.
From September 10, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
