Deportation may split a Wake mother from her children
Deportation may split a Wake mother from her children
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/...0daughters%202
Dunia Vasquez and her daughters Provided photo
By Ashleigh Cannon
July 08, 2017 6:00 PM
My children are all well out of babyhood; even my youngest is now closer to college than she is to preschool. While I love who they are now and who they are becoming, there are still times when I’m nostalgic for those early years when they were small. Recently I met a little girl who reminds me so much of my middle daughter when she was a toddler. It’s more than just similarities in hair and coloring, although that’s a part of it; like my daughter, Valeria is tiny, curious and determined. When she’s on her feet she’s into everything. I can identify with her mother, Dunia Vasquez, who often has her on her hip. It doesn’t feel so long since I held one of my babies on mine.
Like me, Dunia is a wife and a mother, and it’s clear these roles are a big part of her identity. We are both active members of our church, White Plains United Methodist, though in different roles: Dunia was commissioned by Bishop Hope Morgan Ward as a lay missioner in the United Methodist Church in 2015. Like me, she works and pays taxes…but there the similarities end.
Dunia is originally from Honduras, a country that has one of the highest murder rates in the world. After the birth of her son she came to the United States in 2004 to seek a safer and better life for herself and for her child. In the time since, she has lost her first husband to violence in Honduras, married again and given birth to three daughters, all American citizens. She has worked and been a productive member of our society, and she has lived and shared her faith in many ways.
In 2011, a deportation order was issued for her. She received a stay and has dutifully attended her required check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, at her last visit, she was informed that her stay had been denied and she would be deported in July. Ironically, July marks exactly 13 years since she arrived here, full of hope for the future. She’s now faced with separation from her husband and with one of the hardest decisions a mother can make: whether to leave her daughters behind, or to risk their safety and take them to Honduras with her, giving up their opportunities for a good education and a bright future.
Dunia has submitted an application for a U visa, which according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is “set aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity.” While I don’t know the circumstances supporting her application, her attorneys believe she has a strong case. However, without a stay she will be deported before her application can be adjudicated.
I said the similarities between us ended at the roles in life we’ve shared, but I realize that there’s much more to it. I know the feeling of being willing to do anything to make life better for my children. I think every mother does. I know what it is to fill out form after form to apply for a visa, with the dream of a united family as the goal, because two of my three children joined our family through international adoption. However, I did so with the certainty of my birthright as an American citizen, and the brief time I waited to hold my children in my arms pales in comparison to the separation from her children Dunia faces. I pray that the arms that I’ve seen carry little Valeria are never achingly empty.
There will never be a one-size-fits-all answer to the issues surrounding immigration in our country. I don’t know what the right solution is, but deporting Dunia and tearing apart her family is the wrong one.
It violates everything we say we believe when we tell the stories of the generations of immigrants who built this country, and everything we imply when we invoke the image of the Statue of Liberty. If we truly believe we welcome the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, then we must ask ourselves who they are today.
My mother’s heart, touched by a child so like my own, already knows its answer.
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/...160246084.html
