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Family Split Apart by Deportation

Posted: 2009-06-19 17:47:16

When Esteban Torres was four years old, his father was deported to Mexico. Torres, who grew up to become a prominent member of Congress representing California, still remembers that day. He never saw his father again.

It was the 1930´s and Mexican-Americans, even those born in the United States, including Torres´ father, were being rounded up and sent south of the border. More than 1 million, mostly U.S. citizens, were illegally deported.

Deported Parents, Solo Children

Saul and Elvira Arellano After a long stand against U.S. Immigration authorities, Mexican Elvira Arellano was deported. Her son, Saul who is a US citizen, used the media as a platform to spread his voice in hopes of keeping his mother in the United States.

AFP

Ronald Soza, 9, left, and his sister Cecia, 12, right, sit on a bed with their legal guardian Nora Sandigo, center, during a hunger strike to protest the deportation of their mother Marcela Soza to Nicaragua.

Lynne Sladky, AP

Nicaraguan Marisela Soza, 32, deported from the U.S., shows pictures of her children during an interview. Soza was deported from South Florida last January. Her son, Ronald Soza is suing President Barack Obama so he can living once again with his mother in the United States.

Esteban Felix, AP

Hunger strike Before their mother was deported, the Soza's siblings held a hunger strike to pressure the authorities and stop the deportation of their Mother.

Lynne Sladky, AP

Marisela Soza Saul and Cecia's mother, Marisela Soza, has been living in Nicaragua, their children are now asking the courts to act so her mother can return to the United States.
Prior to 1996, parents had the right to go to court and have their immigration status resolved if they could prove they had lived in the country for more than seven years, and their children would suffer if they were deported .

Esteban Felix, AP

More than 70 years later, Saul Arellano, an 8 year old from Chicago, lived through a similar ordeal when his mother was arrested by U.S. authorities outside of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown Los Angeles and deported to Mexico. Despite being a U.S. citizen, Saul, having no other relatives near by, followed his mom, Elvira Arellano to Tijuana to return later, alone to Chicago to go back to school.

Elvira was not a U.S. citizen, she crossed the border illegally, twice. She had no legal rights to be in the United States, but what about the rights of her son? Does he have a right to be with his mom?

The children are U.S. Citizens

Saul´s story is not unique. Thousands of children in the United States live in fear that their parents could be deported, thousands more have seen their families torn apart by immigration laws. Being born in the United States ensures they are citizens from birth, and most do not know other country.

The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizenship at birth to almost all individuals born in the United States or in U.S. jurisdictions, according to the principle of jus soli.

Certain individuals born in the United States, such as children of foreign heads of state or children of foreign diplomats, do not obtain U.S. citizenship under jus soli.

Also individuals born outside of the United States are born citizens because of their parents, according to the principle of jus sanguinis (which holds that the country of citizenship of a child is the same as that of his / her parents).

Now roughly 150 children are asking President Barack Obama to halt the deportations of their parents until Congress overhauls U.S. immigration laws.

The children are all U.S. citizens and say their constitutional rights are being violated because they, too, will likely have to leave the country if their parents are forced to leave.

Hunger strike

In Miami on Wednesday, Ronald Soza celebrated his 10th birthday with cake and a serenade by more than 100 other children and their parents.

His own family: absent. His mother was recently deported back to Nicaragua. His father rarely ventures out in public in fear of similar fate. Now Soza and the other children -- all U.S. citizens whose parents could be or have been deported -- are demanding a say in the immigration debate.

They are suing President Barack Obama, asking a court to halt the deportations of their parents until Congress overhauls U.S. immigration laws.

This is Ronald's second attempt to bring his mother from Nicaragua. Last January he went on a hunger strike in the hopes of preventing his mother's deportation.

In a statement to the Miami Herald he said, ''I think it's really unfair...They take our parents away like they're criminals."

Constitutional rights violated?

The children, who gathered Wednesday at the Miami nonprofit American Fraternity to draw attention to their cause, say their constitutional rights are being violated because they will likely have to leave the country if their parents are forced to go.

Some children said their families didn't have enough money to pay for school supplies because the bread winning parent had been deported, and some are at risk of losing their homes. They also say they are suffering psychological and physical hardship.

"My grades went from A's to C's when my mom had to leave," said Ronald.

Hearing scheduled

Nora Sandigo, the head of the Fraternity, originally brought the case on behalf of the children against the Bush administration. She refiled it in January in Miami and a hearing is scheduled for August.

Sandigo said she is frustrated that the Obama administration hasn't done more to address immigration reform.

"Today these children's voices are not heard," she said as dozens of youngsters squirmed and twirled their flags on a rug before her, "but tomorrow these U.S. citizens will be voting."

Perhaps not literally, but many of the more than 100 children who gathered Wednesday are already in their teens and will be voting age by the next presidential election.

All roads point to Congress

Sandigo says many of the children's parents came to the U.S. before 1996 immigration changes made it more difficult for them to become legal residents. When they came, they had a valid expectation that if they stayed out of trouble for seven years, they could eventually become legal residents, she has argued.

Immigration experts say the case has a tough road in the courts because Congress explicitly made the law retroactive.

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But the lawsuit may help get attention for the issue in the political arena, said immigration Scholar Louis DeSipio of the University of California, Irvine.

"It's a very conscious decision of the immigrant advocates to focus on this issue," he added, "to disabuse Americans of the images we have of men in their twenties and thirties running across the border, showing instead that it's a family affair."

2009-06-18 12:01:23

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lharris3167 07:48:41 AM Aug 01 2009

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If the parents want to be in the US, do it LEGALLY. There should be no reward for breaking the law. Deciding to come into the US illegally was a decision they made. Suffer the consequences. If anyone is to be blamed for the destruction of these family units, it's the PARENTS who made the decision to break the law. period!

SHORTY1430 06:02:13 PM Jun 29 2009

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The truth is that is is very sad when families are split apart. It should not even be a choice. However if a visa or your time in a country is over, then it is time to go home. These people are not criminals, they are humans, and maybe their families, for the sake of them staying together, should all go. I do not have the answer, and my heart goes out to these children and their parents.

PhxGmr18 01:57:31 AM Jun 24 2009

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We as Americans need to start keeping OUR jobs here in this country instead of sending them overseas and across the border. This will help us in two ways. it will stop tearing down other countries economies at least in North America if we force US companies to pay equal wages there like they do here. Also, it will create more jobs here.

PhxGmr18 01:50:25 AM Jun 24 2009

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as for the US stealing so much land from Mexico. You could argue that they did do that. Although Mexico did lose in the war, the United States had no business in the war. US immigrants in the Mexican state of Tejas, now Texas, had agreed to give up their US citizenship in return for land in Mexico and adopt Mexican citizenship. When Texas seceded from Mexico, like the US in their civil war, did not accept this. The US obviously wanted more land and therefore sided with the Republic of Texas. This resulted in the war. However, this is now in the past and Mexico lost the war and therefore lost land.

PhxGmr18 01:42:36 AM Jun 24 2009

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we don't need an amnesty. we do need a path to legalization. have reasonable fees paid and have a faster process. speed up those who are already on a legal path to immigration and then get current illegal immigrants in line and through the line. the process takes so long and is so expensive. we need reform.

penguinking628 12:01:40 PM Jun 23 2009

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I dont know where I stand on this topic. I agree that they should be sent back to where they came from, but saying their all criminals and thugs is wrong. most people come here to make a better life for themselves. About how America stole land from Mexico is wrong. America fought a war with Mexico and Mexico lost, so we America got most of the land. Its like any war through out the years. I also dont know how some children plan to sue the president of America to make him change anything! Can someone help me understand this

littlechamp19 11:08:03 AM Jun 23 2009

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So now U.S.-born children are on hunger strike to protest their parents being deported back to Latin America because they are "illegal" immigrants. And a whole load of American ignoramuses are saying, "Let the little buggers starve," (yes, that is an actual quote from someone) because, "Their parents broke the law by coming here illegally and are criminals". Illegal. Criminals. Ok. So is it legal, then, that the U.S. STOLE 55% of its land from Mexico during the Mexican-American war? Including all of those border states such as Texas, California, Arizona, the revealingly titled New Mexico, etc.? Is it legal that we train would-be dictators how to brutally suppress a civilian population at the CIA-led School of the%2

littlechamp19 10:21:24 AM Jun 23 2009

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First, I want to thank Alix Saintil for making the first comments on this situation that I've seen, anywhere, linking this flood of "illegal" immigrants from Latin America to the fact that it's the U.S. who is responsible for making their home countries so unlivable in the first place, as well as stealing and exploiting their land, so that the supposed borders they are crossing over are not legal borders anyway. As someone who lived in Nicaragua while working with an NGO, I have observed firsthand the destruction caused to that country and to other parts of Latin America by the U.S.A. I would like to add to a few other points that most Americans are completely unaware of. Firstly, in the case of Mexico, fully 55%

AlixSaintil 08:59:03 AM Jun 23 2009

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I have a solution to the immigration problem.: If we so concerned about NEW illigal immigrants coming to the US (by the way, Columbus was not just illigal but also criminal), we should just close our borders, recall all the US companies that are strangling the "Third world" nations like Mexico via the IMF, the World Bank, and the other institutions created by the US to rape these countries thus augmenting the flow of "illigal" immigration, bring them home and see how long the US will retain its supramacy. It is too much of a complexed issue to allow every idiot with a computer to expose his/her views.

AlixSaintil 08:44:21 AM Jun 23 2009

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These people are not illigals. The border crossed them and that is why all these states have Spanish names. What compassion can we expect from a system that used genocide at its inception? No remorse, no shame.

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