Thread: If Fiancee is Deported, I'll Go Too(Sob story)

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If fiancee is deported, I'll go too, Iowan says
The couple haven't seen each other since the immigration raids Dec. 12.

By PAULA LAVIGNE
REGISTER STAFF WRITER


February 12, 2007
23 Comments



Marshalltown, Ia. - Robert Braun saved to buy an engagement ring, but he spent the money to hire an attorney instead.

Right now, he figures that's what his girlfriend needs most.

His girlfriend, Dulce Hernandez Vazquez, was cooking breakfast in the cafeteria when immigration officials raided the Swift & Co. plant in Marshalltown on Dec. 12. They arrested her and 98 others from the town.

In short, sporadic phone calls since then, Hernandez has been able to tell Braun in broken English where she is now: a county jail in Gadsden, Ala.

Braun doesn't speak Spanish. He's a 31-year-old South Dakota farm boy who moved to Iowa for work. He fell in love with an undocumented immigrant, and he says he'll go so far as to move to Mexico or near the border to be with her if she can't stay in the United States.

"She's always saying I should find somebody better than her. I don't want anything other than her," he said. "She's the best thing in my life, ever."

Since immigration authorities moved Hernandez from Iowa two months ago, Braun and Des Moines attorney Ta-Yu Yang have been trying to stop the government from deporting the mother of two through civil immigration proceedings. Both men say her legal battle has been beset by the secretive moving of detainees from Iowa to Georgia to Alabama, as well as poor communication and lost or forgotten paperwork in the courts.

Yang continues to work on the cases of four Swift workers, including Hernandez. He said the government should have kept them in Iowa or nearby so they could have access to legal representation and their relatives while they wait for hearings.

Yang has accused immigration officials of sending detainees to Georgia instead, where some judges have the reputation of being hard on undocumented immigrants.

"The government has broken more laws in enforcing the situation than the immigrants ever broke," he said.

Pat Reilly, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said she could not address specific concerns raised in Hernandez's case.

However, she said, detainees were moved where ICE had space available. Problems, such as accessing a phone to call an attorney, might be caused by miscommunication at the detention facilities, she said. She added that all locations have bilingual signs with directions on how to make a complaint.

"We have protocols and we follow protocols," she said. "It sounds like it's our word against (Yang's)."

Braun and Hernandez met in the Swift plant cafeteria about a year ago, when Braun was working as an animal health technician for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As their relationship grew, they often went on picnics with Hernandez's two children, Jazmine, 8, and Oscar, 12. On weekends they sometimes spent time in Des Moines or Cedar Falls, or Braun would take Hernandez on impromptu driving lessons. He bought her a hand-held electronic dictionary and translator for her birthday so she could improve her English.

Hernandez, 33, came to America as a teenager in 1992. She moved to Iowa from Chicago about three years ago with her two children.

By early December, Hernandez and Braun decided they would move in together. They had arranged for the school bus to pick up Jazmine at the three-bedroom house they were planning to rent near the plant. The Swift raid interrupted their plans.

In his home, Braun keeps a three-ring blue binder with at least a 2-inch stack of paper containing e-mail messages, cards, photos and letters he and Hernandez have exchanged. Braun also sends her poems, which he converts to Spanish using an online translator.

In a short jail interview this month from Alabama, Hernandez said she wants her children and Braun with her, but she doesn't know how they would make a life in Mexico. Her children, especially her son, can speak a little Spanish, but he reads and writes only English. Her parents are dead, and she is estranged from a sister who lived on the East Coast.

"I don't have family in Mexico. I have nothing in Mexico," she said. "It's a 95 percent chance I go to Mexico. It's hard for me. I'm sad. I'm crying. I'm waiting. I don't know what will happen to my life now."

Hernandez is facing civil immigration charges - such as illegally entering the United States, overstaying a legal visit, or working without a permit - and is in ICE custody.

She is not among the 274 detainees facing state or federal criminal charges, including the ones charged with identity theft. Immigration attorneys say that in some ways, criminal detainees have more rights. For example, they can have an attorney at the government's expense; people like Hernandez have to pay for their own.

"In the criminal system, they typically don't take someone and incarcerate them halfway across the country," said David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration lawyer who is a national executive officer with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Clients are difficult to track in the immigration system, he said.

"It's hit or miss whether you can even get anybody to answer the telephone," Leopold said.

Those facing civil immigration charges often land in detention facilities where they lack regular access to a phone, said Paromita Shah, associate director with the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. The food they get fails the government's own regulations, and they seldom receive the supplies stipulated in federal guidelines, she said.

"They're standards. They're not regulations or rules," she said. "Not only are they not enforceable, but not every facility has to comply with them."

In jail, Hernandez bought a cup and plate for about $2.50 because she didn't have enough clean dishes. She asked Braun to send her towels, books, T-shirts and underwear. She had nothing more than what she was wearing on the day of the raid. She uses shampoo that Braun sends her to wash her clothes, Braun said.

Although a federal employee himself, Braun said this experience has made him lose "all confidence in the government." He said he is angry with how she has been treated.

"There's no impartialness to all this," he said. "It's amazing how my view of the justice system has changed."

Yang, the attorney, has asked the courts to move Hernandez closer to Iowa and allow her to be released on bond while she awaits trial. If the courts deny those requests, however, Braun said they might just give up and agree to leave the country.

Hernandez's son, Oscar, said leaving would be a better alternative than having his mom in jail.

"It's really hard for me because my mom used to be there for me," he said. "I know she'll be in good hands, because I know (Robert) said he'll move out there and take care of her."

Braun has spent almost $4,000 on attorney fees, postage, phone calls and supplies to help Hernandez. He skipped entire days of work to sit in the attorney's office and wait for calls from the judge that never came. He compiled letters of support from Hernandez's friends, coworkers, school principals and others who knew the couple, including Braun's relatives.

But not everyone wants Hernandez released.

Craig J. Halverson said he has sympathy for her, but he said the judge should send her back to Mexico with her children. Halverson is the director of the Iowa Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group that lobbies against illegal immigration and protests against businesses that hire unlawful workers.

"The law is the law and laws are there to be enforced," he said. "I feel sorry for her in that ... big business has taken advantage of her and set her in this situation. I still believe laws must be enforced or our society will be chaotic."

If the judge allowed her to stay, that would set a precedent encouraging even more people to sneak into the country, including those who intend to do harm, he said.

Barbara Braun, Robert's mother, said she believes the law should distinguish between those who are running away from the law and those who are "looking for a better life." She met Hernandez and the two children when they visited the family's cattle ranch in Wetonka, S.D., about 25 miles northwest of Aberdeen. Hernandez helped her weed an unruly flower garden.

"She would just care for anybody. If there was anything anyone needed, she would give it to them. What has she done to deserve this?" she said.

She admits her son's relationship is a bit unusual - and controversial - but she said she would support the couple, even if means her son moves south to marry Hernandez.

Braun proposed to Hernandez over the phone in early January.

She said yes.

Reporter Paula Lavigne can be reached at (515) 745-3428 or plavigne@dmreg.com




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fortdodgedude and others Posted by: beamer
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:38 am
The article clearly states that she is currently 33 years of age, and came to the US in 1992. That means she came here 15 years ago, at age 18. Her children are 12 and 8, which means both of them were born AFTER she came to the US. Don't try to justify this woman's actions by making her out to be some poor kid who was dragged here by her parents when she was 13, or some single mom seeking a better life for her kids. She was 18 years old - an adult - with no children when she came here. Not to mention, after 15 years she has barely learned to speak English.


please do move... Posted by: ervserver
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:29 am
Iowa doesn't need any more law breakers, govt is full of them all ready


love of a criminal according to old boy Posted by: oldboy
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:23 am
man, what a sappy story. the register had to love printing this one. ten years and still not a citizen? apparently she has no intention of becoming one. this south dakota farm boy was surely raised with more sense than he is using!!!


Crimminal? Posted by: fortdodgedude
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:21 am
Never new Iowa was full of such backward, narrow minded bigots. Did she break the law? Maybe, she came to the US as a teenager, with ehr parents amybe? Not a lot of choice. She has since been a hardworking citizen, (no she's taking all our jobs!!!! (Busying tables or cooking for very low wages, yes, I really want that job!) The greater crime is to deport a woman with 2 young children who came her not by her choice but her parents choice and has worked hard.

INS should go after real threats not the small fish


Reader Comment Posted by: IowaNinersFan
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:19 am
Only in America where the ILLEGALS can work using other people's IDs, have children left and right and are given birth citizenship, get free healthcare and government assistance, won't learn English and at the first sign of trouble, take to the streets and demand that they become citizens just because they've gone so long under the radar without being caught.


REALLY NOBLE Posted by: Waldo
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:14 am
My God, I am in shock, Noble. Are you telling us that he has to speak spanish to get employment in Mexico and there would be no health benefits or unemployment?? And he is excluded from working at a job, just because he is a gringo??

You are right, several weeks of that crap and he'll be back in the good ol' US real quick..

Guess ILLEGALS have it rather nice in our terrible country.


Reader Comment Posted by: IowaNinersFan
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:14 am
See ya amigo. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.


Little head and big head Posted by: huebress
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:14 am
Almost unanimous here - just joining the Law&Order group.

Put both parties on a plane to Mexico - require Swift&Co to pay the first class airfare.

Make them both stand in the proper line to apply for legal admission to the good ole USA...

My relatives did not come on the MayFlower but they got here as soon as they could....


marriage Posted by: mindirella
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:11 am
marriage to an illegal will not make them an automatic citizen. That law was done away with years ago. they still must get a lawyer and do it legally, which can and does cost ALOT of money.
My prayers are with all the children in these families, as they didn't ask for any of this.


Poor Immigrants..... Posted by: polaris_lovers
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 8:56 am
I agree with the post about him moving to Mexico. Love is no excuse for exclusion from the law. If he saved his money and moved down there he could provide a nice little home for his family. We need to take our county back. If you are here legally then welcome!! If you are an illegal immigrant from any country then go back home and try again when you can get here legally!!



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I love this comment:

REALLY NOBLE Posted by: Waldo
on Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:14 am
My God, I am in shock, Noble. Are you telling us that he has to speak spanish to get employment in Mexico and there would be no health benefits or unemployment?? And he is excluded from working at a job, just because he is a gringo??

You are right, several weeks of that crap and he'll be back in the good ol' US real quick..

Guess ILLEGALS have it rather nice in our terrible country

Yang, the attorney, has asked the courts to move Hernandez closer to Iowa and allow her to be released on bond while she awaits trial. If the courts deny those requests, however, Braun said they might just give up and agree to leave the country.

I hate to sound cold, but don't let the door hit you on the way out!

I didn't read the whole thing but this guy just needs to let her be deported and then marry her in Mexico. As long as the wedding is legit, he can eventually get her back into the U.S. and get her citizenship.

Let him go to Mexico, any one who supports an illegal is disobeying the law. Send him to jail where he belongs.

Yang continues to work on the cases of four Swift workers, including Hernandez. He said the government should have kept them in Iowa or nearby so they could have access to legal representation and their relatives while they wait for hearings.

Yang has accused immigration officials of sending detainees to Georgia instead, where some judges have the reputation of being hard on undocumented immigrants.

"The government has broken more laws in enforcing the situation than the immigrants ever broke," he said.

This system is mighty screwed up, but I need to read the law that says an unlawfully present foreign national has a right to face federal charges in the locale where they squatted. Is this similar to the law that gives drug gangs their "turf?"

Sorry you had to be moved, but we wouldn't want to upset those civil rights groups who are so worried about over crowed facilites. So give them a big thanks the next time you run into one of them, will you.

And take you boyfriend with you it will help even out some of the extra Mexican citizens we are no doubt going to be stuck with after this is over

ADIOS.

dont let the door hit your A$$ on the way out

good riddance, ya idiot

Like Jethro Clampett meets Elvira Arellano?