I met Jesús in Nogales, Mexico, at a facility that provides humanitarian assistance to migrants.
He had lived in Salt Lake City for 20 years, but had just been deported. The morning we met he had been removed from the bus on the U.S. side of the border, unshackled and transferred to Mexican authorities who drove him to a center which feeds about 100 migrants every day and provides clothing, medicine and other necessities.
Over breakfast, Jesús told us he arrived from Mexico with his parents when he was 8 years old, attended school, learned English, and hung drywall to help support his family. Seven years ago, he married, and has two American-born children, ages 4 and 5.
Unfortunately, his wife, an alcoholic, left him, and the state of Utah placed the children in foster care. The foster parents, he told us, are good people and he’s grateful for the care they’ve given his children, but he wanted to care for them himself.
So about 18 months ago, he began the time-consuming process to obtain custody. He paid one lawyer thousands of dollars only to have her claim she could do nothing. Eventually, however, he was able to regain custody of his children. Last November, they moved into a new apartment.
Consumed with the custody battle, he forgot to renew his work permit. When he tried to do so, he was detained. Six weeks after he gained custody, he was deported and his children were returned to foster care. Now he is living in Nogales, and desperate to see his children again.
While in Nogales I spoke with many people like Jesús. The details of their cases differed: One was deported when he was stopped for a traffic violation and referred to immigration authorities by the police; others were deported because they couldn’t navigate the paperwork or afford the fees.
Thousands of Mexican parents of American children have been deported over the past decade, and it’s become so common that many Mexican-American families develop emergency plans in the event that one or both parents is deported while their kids are at school.
Jesús cried when he told us that he had no choice but to try re-crossing the border. Thousands of people have died trying, and hundreds of thousands have been caught and deported in recent years. His children need him, so he will try again. Our government has left him no other choice.
Immigration reform poses political challenges. What is certain is that we gain nothing by forcing American children to grow up separated from their mothers and fathers. If we value families, and if we want these thousands of U.S. residents to contribute productively to our society, we must have the political courage and moral decency to solve this problem.
This painful human tragedy will continue until we accept the reality that our system is broken, and demand that our elected officials focus on families as they attempt to resolve this crisis. As a nation of immigrants, we owe it to Jesús, to others like him, and to ourselves, to find a solution.
Stanton E.F. Wortham is the dean of the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. He recently volunteered at the Kino Border Initiative (KBI), a binational organization that operates the facility in Nogales. Talk back at letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com.
