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Ortiz’s bill aims to help military families
“I feel like the country at least owes me being able to live in the U.S. with my family,”
– Daniel Davis, Operation Enduring Freedom veteran

Some separated because of legal status

BY SARA INÉS CALDERÓN
The Brownsville Herald

September 20, 2006 — After four years in the U.S. Navy fighting for Operation Enduring Freedom and serving his country, Daniel Davis said it’s as if the United States doesn’t want him anymore.

“I feel like the country at least owes me being able to live in the U.S. with my family,” Davis said in reference to his wife’s legal status preventing him from living in the United States with Alexis, their American-born daughter.

They are partly why U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, co-sponsored the “Uniting America’s Military Families” bill, House Resolution 6047, with Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, both of the Armed Services Committee.

Introduced on Sept. 7, the bill aims to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act and make life easier for families with mixed legal status. By including the spouses and children of an active duty Reserves or armed forces members in the non-immigrant visa program and creating wavers for inadmissibility, Ortiz said his aim is to eliminate barriers for soldiers’ families.

Davis has lived in Matamoros with his family since last December because his wife, Cecilia, a Mexican citizen, was convicted of falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen before he met her. This effectively means she cannot legally be in the country.

According to Ortiz’s office, 15 percent of Rio Grande Valley National Guardsmen live in Mexico with their families.

Davis and Cecilia married in 2000 and had their daughter in 2001. Before Davis was to deploy to Afghanistan, he decided to drive to his native Tennessee, so his wife and daughter could stay with his family while he was at war.

Once they arrived to Arizona, though, they stumbled on a huge roadblock.

“We ran into a (Border Patrol) checkpoint, and she didn’t have any paperwork, and so they deported her,” Davis said.

That was November 2001. Cecilia has been living in Mexico ever since.

Their daughter Alexis was only 13 days old at the time, Davis said, and there was only one week before he left to serve in Operation Enduring Freedom. Instead of being able to spend time with his family, he had to continue on to Tennessee without saying a final goodbye to his wife.

It is exactly this type of legal quagmire that Ortiz said prompted him to create the bill.

“These people have been able to fight and die for our country,” Ortiz said of soldiers, lamenting the fact that their families cannot always come to spend time with them or receive the benefits they fight for.

“The soldiers earned it, but their families cannot enjoy and receive it — all through the border.”

Since 2001, Davis has been to war and back, finished his tour in the military and been separated from his wife and child for a year and a half while he finished school here.

They’ve tried the legal channels, Davis said. Filing paperwork, keeping immigration appointments, but Cecilia’s previous conviction has proved to be a huge barrier to her legalization, he said.

“I feel like I’m banned from the U.S. because I’m married to my wife, but she has to live in Mexico, so that means I have to live in Mexico,” Davis said. “It kind of makes me feel like I’m banned from the U.S., too, because we can’t come and do stuff in the U.S., and she doesn’t get her benefits, and my daughter can’t go to U.S. schools.”

Davis is still in the Navy Reserve, although he says he might “have a big debate about going” if he gets called up. As a veteran, he wishes to live in the country he fought for with his family but has hit nothing but dead ends.

“I decided to write a letter to every member of Congress that works with the immigration laws, and out of the 30 or 40 that I wrote to, Solomon Ortiz is the only one that wrote me back,” Davis said, adding that he did receive help from Sen. John McCain and his congressman in Tennessee.

Now what Davis says he wants is some help from the government, from his country, to live his life after war. He just wants to live in his country with his family.

“I think that military people that fought in a war should be exempt to that law, maybe make a special case for a military family,”

TALKBACK: Do you think immigration law should be changed for soldiers’ families so they can be together?

sicalderon@brownsvilleherald.com


Posted on Sep 20, 06 | 12:01 am