If you are against immigration, then don´t read this.
Dh and I have been married now for 15years as of the 28th of this month. When we met, he was an "illegal alien." I despise that term. Aliens we are not. We were born on Earth, not Mars or Jupiter. Illegal... well, if one person is illegal we all should be. We are ALL immigrants! The US was based on immigration.
So, when DH and I got married, we ended up going the civil route, just becasue at the time, and rather conveniently, there was a general amnesty of some sorts allowing people to apply for thier residency. So we jumped on the chance for him to become a legal resident and married earlier than we origninally planned. We applied for his residency in 1997. Then, somehow we missed an appointment. Don´t know how or why, but we had to reapply again in 2000. This time everything went smoothly and DH recieved his permanent resident card in 2002.
But not all was peachy. There are so many stupid rules and regs to residency, and the officials do not tell you about all of them. There is a minimum 7 year probation period. That means you get your residency card, but are not considered permanent until the 7 years time has passed. So if anything happens that causes your residency to be challenged, you loose out on the opportunity to apply for citizenship.
So here´s what happened to DH: a co-worker of his had been on his back for over a year for dh to help him cross his children over the border. Dh kept telling him no. So in ´07, dh goes to visit his mom, like he did every year. On his way back, his co-worker once again asked him to help, and dh broke down and said, ok fine. Well, Dh had been right to say no, becasue he was stopped at the border crossing with the kids, only becasue the kids said something that was suspicious to the border agent. He was detained, but then released and allowed to come home. I still don´t understand how or why the decision was made to allow him to come home instead of taking his papers away immediatly, like you hear about so often. We immediatly aquired a lawyer and started the proccess of fighting the deportation order he was given. Nearly three years, many trips to Immigration court in San Diego, and 10thousand dollars later our lives were suddenly put on hold.
In June of 09 we were supposed to have recieved a letter from immigration on the outcome of our second phase, which was an appeal of the immigration judge´s desicion. We recieved a letter in the mail that stated, "the decision is on the following page. The decision is final." The second page was BLANK! So we immediatly called the lawyer and asked what was going on. The lawyer said he didn´t know and would find out and let us know. A month went by and we had no word from the lawyer, so we call again in July. Still no answer. Then we called twice in August, with the same results. The lawyer was supposedly still trying to get an answer from immigration.
September 1, I was leaving the apartment to take the kids to school when two people arrived. I was already in the car, waiting on my daughter to come down. When she finally got in, she said that those people were looking for her dad. As I am on my way to drop of my son to middle school, DH texts me with "hurry home its the police" and my heart drops to my feet. What the heck was going on?
I rush to drop off DS1 and then DD and rush home again. As soon as I get home, the two people who were arriving are inside my apartment talking with DH. They introduce themselves as homeland security agents and explain that DH had an order of deportation that was issued since June. SAY WHAT???? They had to take DH to their office in San Fransisco, but they would try and get his deportation order temporarily lifted due to our circumstance. On that day we were frantically working on packing our apartment because we were evicted and had less than one week to vacate and move.
The one reason they didn´t take him when I left the house was becasuse I had left ds2 with DH, who at the time was only 11 months old. They paitently waited for me to come home.
As soon as they were out the door with DH, I started calling the lawyer. Throughout the day I left probably over 10 messages with the secretary, and she promised that they would take care of things. Well, that was complete bullshit. When the lawyer finally called me back it was the next day and DH was already in TJ. What the damn lawyer told me totally blew me away. His response was "we´ve been trying to get a hold of you since June to alert you to the deportation order" WTF? We were in constant contact with you jackass!!
So September ended up being the month from hell for me and my kids. It was extremely difficult to tell them when I picked them up from school that their dad was not going to be home and would not be able to come home for quite a while. DH finally arrived at his mom´s house three days later, after being basically thrown across the border with no identification whatsoever and no money to make calls with or to buy food.
I am so angry with the stupid immigration system right now, even after a year has passed. One of the stipulations we ran accross during the nearly three years of court proceedings was the 7 year residency probation. According to immigration court the probationary period starts when the official residency card is issued. But there have been cases where the supreme court allowed the probationary period to be counted from the day the official social security number and the work permit was issued. In that case, DH had nearly 10 years of residency. But according to immigration court his residency was only 5 years.
So what did this all mean for my family?
My kids had to live for 3.5 months without thier father. I had to scramble to find a place where all four of us could live that I could afford to pay on my small salary from my brand new job. I also had to scramble to find daycare for the little guy. It also meant I had to go on food stamps and welfare. I felt like life was over. I felt low. It was the worst 3.5 months in my entire life. My oldest started failing his classes, and he had always been a top student. My daughter started acting out and fighting with me all the time. The baby couldn´t sleep through the night anymore. I lost a lot of weight because we didn´t have enough money for food, even with the food stamps and welfare in addition to my job.
By December, I had reached a major decision, in which my kids whole heartedly agreed with- move to Mexico. So December 8, 2009 we packed our car to the brim with clothes, computers, and as much else as we could, and left California. The rest of our personal belongings, such as furniture, other clothes, books, movies, etc., was put into a storage. With my dad´s blessing we were able to keep the storage- he offered to help by paying the monthly storage fee.
As of, September 2010, we were happily living in Mexico, living in our own house, running our own business, and much better off than we had been the past 14 years living in California. Our lives had improved drastically in less than one year, and all just by leaving the United States.
DH is hopeful that he can reapply for residency, but I am extremely doubtfull the all so wonderful United States government will accept him back with open arms. In the meantime, I plan on staying here in Mexico, where I feel more secure and much more at peace. (Ok, so I wrote this back in 2010... Today, obviously I am not in Mexico... more on that later.)
And all I have to say to anyone who want´s to get rid of the "illegal immigrants" is-
GET A LIFE! GO RAIN ON SOMEONE ELSES PARADE!
