Illegal immigrant, mother of five, continues fight to stay
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article ... yid=257983
Family and friends of a woman who is set to be deported back to Mexico say she'll be able to stay in Minnesota one more week to try and convince an immigration judge to re-open her case.
Sarah Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico and mother of five young children, was arrested by immigration officials last week at her home in St. Michael.
Her supporters rallied in front of immigration offices Wednesday in Bloomington. It was a last ditch effort to convince immigration officials to allow Gonzalez to stay in the country she's called home for 15 years.
"We just stay up half of the whole night waiting and waiting to see if they will let my mom go," 13-year-old Joanna Avendano, Sarah's daughter, says.
"We cannot live without our mom. She is everything to us," Joanna's sister, 12-year-old Jennifer Avendano, says.
Sarah remains in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE officials say she was told six years ago by a federal judge that she would have to leave. Sarah decided to stay. That meant she was living in the country illegally.
"We're all heartbroken, we're all destroyed. My kids are scared," Sarah's husband, Nixon Avendano, says.
Immigration officials say there are 600,000 people in the country like Sarah - undocumented immigrants considered fugitives. They've defied a judge's order to leave and it's the job of ICE to arrest them.
"Fifteen years they've been here. They've had steady jobs. They've contributed to the economy," says one of Sarah's supporters, Father Jim Barnett of Holy Rosary Church in Minneapolis.
Sarah's family and other supporters say her case highlights one of the biggest weaknesses of U.S. immigration law - the separation of families with mixed status. While Sarah has no legal status in the U.S., her children are all American citizens and her husband has a visa.
"If you only provide for one part of those members to be here, you will always have family separation. You will always have families torn apart," Kathryn Sharpe, a member of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition says.
It's a complex system, that's tough to explain to five young children who miss their mother.
"Is that a crime that we love our mom? We just want her back home," Joanna Avendano asks.
Sarah's family claims she's made attempts to legally stay in the country.
At the same time, ICE officials say Sarah has filed immigration papers through the years using different names and false nationalities.
