Artifact 3 - What Happens to the Kids?

Parents Deported, What Happens to US-born Kids?

Courtesy of The Associated Press

Living in the United States as an undocumented immigrant is extremely risky. They live in constant fear of being deported back to their home country. After all, the reason they are in the United States in the first place is because they wanted to have a better life than they had back home. How is that supposed to happen if they are sent straight back? The answer is simple: they can't. Having a family member deported after working so hard to get to the United States ruins families.

The article, Parents Deported, What Happens to US-born Kids? tells the story of how several undocumented immigrants are deported. To make things worse, their children are American citizens, therefore, they can't go with them. These families go into desperate measures in order to stay together.

Alexis, Steve, Evelin, and their father Rony Molina found themselves without a mother and wife after, "she went to get her papers and never came back," according to Alexis. Sandra Molina had been deported back to Guatemala, leaving her children and husband, who were all U.S. citizens, in the United States. 

Janna Hakim and her siblings found themselves in a similar situation. Their healthy, stable life in New York came to a sudden stop when they found out that their mother was living in the United States illegally and was being deported. 

Amelia Reyes-Jimenez found herself separated from her blind and paralyzed son after she was arrested and deported for leaving him alone at home. 

Encarnacion Bail Romero lost her baby boy when arrested during an ICE raid of a chicken plant. 

When Felipe Montes was deported, his three children were left in the United States under the care of their mentally-ill mother.

All of these families have gone through the inevitable. What was supposed to be a better life for them was turned into something much worse. Is keeping the American children in the United States, separated from their parents really the best option? Shouldn't they have a say in the situation? Many parents, including these mentioned, have fought in court to try to win back the parental rights that they lost so abruptly. However, all of them were denied. Separating families who are just barely getting by in the United States and making their lives worse seems inappropriate to many people, but the ICE claims that not deporting them will only give the impression that it is okay for other families to do the same things. President Obama's opinion on the issue was that tearing families apart was wrong, therefore, they should just focus on the undocumented immigrants who are criminals. This suggestion, though, has not been carried out by ICE officers yet. Families are continuing to be torn apart by force. 

Reyna, Mago, and Carlos were separated from their parents as well in The Distance Between Us, but by choice instead of force. They were left under the care of several different relatives in Mexico while their parents were in Los Angeles, trying to find a better way to provide for their children. They had been separated from their father for eight years before he came back and within those eight years, their mother left too. Reyna, who was very young when her father left, only knew him from a picture that she called "the man behind the glass." However, she could remember her mother just fine. Reyna, Mago, and Carlos all had moments where they felt abandoned, resentful of their parents for leaving them behind, and worried that their parents would forget all about them and start a new life on their own. 

When Reyna and her siblings got the chance to return to the United States with their father, they had to be separated from their loved ones once again, but it was their own choice that time. Going to "El Otro Lado" meant they would be with their father, who they had been away from for so long, but they would have to leave their mother and sister, who Reyna could not imagine her life without. 

Due to the fact that Reyna's family was torn apart by the choices they made, it isn't the same as the families who were forced apart by deportation, but the emotions involved are very much the same. Both the children and the parents feel full of regret, abandonment, failure, and eternal sadness.

In the book, Reyna said, "Immigration took a toll on us all" (Grande 207). Many, if not all, of the children left behind by their deported parents can probably relate to this statement. Immigration is not easy. The risks and consequences not only affect the migrants themselves, but the people around them, too.