Advocates urge immigrants to get affairs in order
Posted on Mon, Sep. 15, 2008

By KATE BRUMBACK
Associated Press Writer


CHAMBLEE, Ga. -- Fear rippled through a group of Latino parents in suburban Atlanta when a friend was deported to Mexico and temporarily separated from her two young U.S.-born children. The kids weren't able to immediately join her because she and her husband hadn't gotten passports for them.

More than nine months later, anxiety about being taken from their children is still palpable among the members of the support group for Spanish-speaking parents - most of them undocumented - of children with Down syndrome.

To guard against such separations - a widely decried effect of recent large-scale workplace raids - social workers and activists are urging undocumented immigrants to put together emergency kits similar to the kind emergency officials encourage people to keep in case of fire or natural disaster.

"Information is power," said Sonia Parras Konrad, a lawyer in Iowa who helped undocumented immigrants in the wake of a raid at the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant in May. "If they know their rights and are prepared, they can be more in control of their lives and what happens to them."

The immigrants' kits include passports for U.S.-born children, contact info for an attorney, information on their legal rights and other material that can keep families together or help relatives retrieve a last paycheck.

Susy Martorell, a social worker and president of the board of the Hispanic Health Coalition of Georgia who has run the Down syndrome group for about 10 years, said the group's members are constantly preoccupied with their legal status. That prompted her to depart from the group's main focus on health issues once or twice a year to bring in an immigration lawyer.

At a meeting last month, the parents listened raptly, concern visible on their faces, as attorney Luis Alemany answered questions and offered advice. Alemany urged them to prepare for the detention of one or both parents by securing passports and having a well thought-out plan for who will care for the children and how the family will be reunited if the parents are deported.

"Guests like him help us a lot because we learn a lot about immigration law and what we can do to prepare in case something happens," group member Leticia Gonzalez said in Spanish.

A 42-year-old stay-at-home mom from Mexico who lives in the Atlanta area, Gonzalez said she and her construction worker husband have been even more nervous since a man her husband works with was arrested and deported two months ago. The couple, who entered the U.S. illegally and have lived here for 17 years, have been trying to make sure they have all of his papers in order, including records of U.S. taxes he's paid on his income. But she said they don't yet have passports for all of their six children, four of whom are American-born.

While having all the proper documents in order, knowing one's rights and drawing up careful plans of what to do in the event that a family member is detained won't likely prevent a deportation order if a person is here illegally, it can provide some peace of mind by ensuring that families know what to do.

Immigrant rights activists in different parts of the country said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seems to have stepped up its efforts in the last year or so, leading to more deportations. That seems to be supported by ICE removal numbers which have increased every year since 2003, the earliest year for which the agency provides numbers.

"Mixed status families and undocumented families are living with a level of fear that has been unprecedented in the last 20 or 30 years," said Dani Martinez-Moore, who coordinates a network of immigrant advocates for the North Carolina Justice Center.

After a raid at the Smithfield Foods Inc. slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, N.C., and at homes in surrounding counties last August, the Hispanic and Latino Division of the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers put together a roughly 40-page document in Spanish and English that instructs undocumented immigrants on how to put together a Prepare for Action Kit, or PAK.

Immigrant rights and support groups all over the country have their own versions of the PAK, but the idea is generally to gather documents that would be necessary in the event of an unexpected separation. Those include contact information for friends and family inside and outside the U.S., contact information for an immigration lawyer, instructions and powers of attorney authorizing someone to deal with children and property, medical records, copies of identification and other personal documents. Families are advised to keep the information in a safe place and to give a copy to a trusted friend or relative.

Parras Konrad said she noticed a big difference after the raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville, Iowa, between undocumented immigrants who had taken the time to inform themselves of their rights and lay plans and those who hadn't prepared.

The latter, she said, were "in a total panic, crisis mode, unable to think." The families of the ones who had prepared, however, were able to draw the employee's last paycheck and sometimes even to get their loved one freed on supervision by demonstrating that there were children who needed to be cared for or a medical condition that requires treatment.

Being released on supervision, usually with an electronic ankle bracelet, doesn't mean the trouble is over, Parras Konrad said. People who are here illegally will likely still have to leave the country, but it gives them a chance to make their own travel arrangements and close up their affairs here before leaving.



http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/ ... 87415.html