Irving mom's dilemma: dad deported, kids 'are from here'
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Irving mom's dilemma: dad deported, kids 'are from here'
11:57 AM CST on Wednesday, November 28, 2007
By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News
kunmuth@dallasnews.com
Claudia and Jose Garcia moved from Dallas to Irving looking for a peaceful place near a school to raise their three children.
They wanted their daughter to be able to walk to kindergarten rather than suffer through the long bus ride their sons endured in Dallas.
But Mr. Garcia's arrest on Sept. 18 by Irving police changed everything.
He was transferred to immigration authorities for deportation to Mexico, prompting his wife to flee to Dallas.
"I took my children out of school because I am also undocumented," she said. "I lost everything."
Mrs. Garcia, 32, is living proof of the warning issued last month by Irving ISD Superintendent Jack Singley: Deportations are causing immigrants to go "on the run" and pull their children out of school.
No one knows how many illegal immigrant families or U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent have left Irving because of the Police Department's role in the deportation program.
Mr. Singley sought to calm fearful parents in a letter.
"This is a legal matter carried out by law enforcement officials in which the Irving ISD plays no part," Mr. Singley wrote. "However, the impact of these activities has come to the schoolhouse."
He never came home
Mr. Garcia, 28, a construction worker, was driving home when he called his wife to say he would be there soon. He never arrived.
An officer pulled him over at Nursery and Shady Grove roads in Irving for driving with expired license plates and no driver's license.
Jose Garcia's daughter, age 5, made this drawing of her family. Police arrested him for outstanding warrants related to unpaid traffic tickets.
He also carried a fake Social Security card, police said.
Last year, Irving police began participating in the Criminal Alien Program, which meant that they turned Mr. Garcia over to federal immigration authorities for possible deportation. More than 1,700 illegal immigrants have fallen into the CAP in Irving.
National publicity about the large number of arrested immigrants Irving police have turned over for deportation has brought the city a lot of attention in recent months.
Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said unpaid traffic tickets are the biggest reason people get arrested and put into the Criminal Alien Program.
"CAP only kicks in when someone hits the back door of the jail," he said.
Federal immigration authorities announced last week that the CAP program is overtaxing its resources. They said they will no longer accept police referrals of immigrants arrested for Class C misdemeanors.
Class C misdemeanors include most routine traffic tickets. Mr. Garcia was arrested for the more serious offense of possessing a counterfeit Social Security card, so he probably would have been deported even under the new CAP guidelines.
Mr. Garcia's wife didn't find out about his arrest until early the next morning. She did not visit him in jail. She was afraid to go. They spoke by phone.
After his deportation, she withdrew her children from Lee Britain Elementary in Irving and moved out of town.
She left behind most of her possessions, including newly purchased furniture.
She feared moving everything would attract attention.
"I thought the police might stop me if they saw me," she said. "The only thing important to me is protecting my children."
Poll: Crackdown works
A recent poll by the Mexican government appears to confirm that the crackdown on illegal immigration in the U.S., coupled with the slowing economy here, is having an impact.
Fewer Mexicans are trying to cross the border illegally, according to the poll.
Neither Irving ISD officials nor community leaders know how many Hispanic families reacted to the recent deportations in the way Claudia Garcia did.
According to figures released this month, Irving ISD enrollment has fallen by 436 students – 32,753 down from 33,189 students – since the end of September. School officials said they don't know why those students left.
According to police records, six illegal immigrant teenagers were arrested at MacArthur and Irving high schools from September 2006 to September 2007. Police turned them over to federal officials for deportation after filing charges such as marijuana possession, fighting in hallways and playing loud music on campus.
But more often those being deported are parents, and mostly the men, the primary earners.
After her husband's deportation, Mrs. Garcia moved back to her old apartment complex in Dallas to live with her sister-in-law. She enrolled her children in a Dallas school.
"I feel safer here than there," she said.
But she was still without her husband. She stayed in the apartment, worrying and cooking. The sister-in-law's husband didn't like the noise her children made. The Virgin of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico, stared imposingly from a poster on the wall.
She had no job or car. Her three children – ages 9, 6 and 5 – cried often and ate little. They asked when their father would return. She lied and told them he was working in Austin. Her only belongings were some clothes, photos and toys.
A stuffed Barney lay on the sofa. Her husband's somber round face stared back at her from a photo. A picture on the dresser drawn by her 5-year-old daughter showed the family of five holding hands.
"How am I going to pay my rent and bills?" she asked.
Irving social service agencies and churches are seeing others like her.
"A lot of families come in where the head of the household has been deported," said Salvation Army Capt. Matthew Trayler. "Basically they're left without a breadwinner. We're helping them with Christmas assistance, i.e. toys."
Mrs. Garcia faced a key decision. Would she stay in the United States or join her husband in San Luis Potosi, Mexico?
She and Jose met 10 years ago in Texas when she was 22. They both worked in a local factory making dishware. She said their children were all born in the United States.
Even so, they cannot help their father because American-born children have no legal standing to sponsor a parent for legal residency until they turn 21.
"The U.S. citizen child does not have a constitutional right to stop the government from deporting his parent," immigration lawyer Harry Joe said.
Children suffer
Some critics blame children of illegal immigrants for overcrowding of public schools. But even those who support the deportations sympathize with the children left behind.
"Parents make poor choices and kids suffer the consequences, and we find that throughout our society," said Sue Richardson, who rallied in support of the Irving deportation program. "That's not the fault of our law."
After her husband was sent back to Mexico, Mrs. Garcia had trouble sleeping. She spoke to her husband on the phone every night, and it became clear he did not want to return to the United States, she said.
She weighed the options. If she stayed, the children would continue asking for their father. If she left, life in Mexico promised to be more difficult than life in the United States.
Her 9-year-old son speaks mostly English and sometimes didn't seem to understand what she told him in Spanish. The school counselor told her that moving to Mexico could be traumatic for him.
"The three kids are from here – what are we going to do?" she asked. "They've never been separated from their father. I'm confused."
Flipping through a family album, she pointed at photos of her children and their father at Six Flags and with Santa Claus. A stay-at-home mom, she did not want to work and have someone else watch them.
Earlier this month, she made her decision. She and the children rejoined her husband in Mexico. He found a new job in an office. He's earning good money because he speaks some English. They had already built a house in Mexico and always planned to go back someday, she said.
She plans to enroll her children in a private school, where they will continue to learn English.
Whether her children return to the United States someday will be up to them, she said.
"That's a decision they can make when they're older," she said. "They are from here."
IRVING ISD DEMOGRAPHICS
Irving ISD's enrollment was 32,753 as of Nov. 16. Here are a few of the demographic characteristics. Percentages are rounded:
Hispanic, 22,016 (67%)
White, 5,244 (16%)
Black , 4,010 (12%)
Asian , 1,378 (4%)
American Indian, 105 (0.3%)
*Immigrant, 1,499 (5%)
Limited English Proficient
(LEP), 12,851 (39%)
Students enrolled in bilingual programs, 7,842 (24%)
Students enrolled in ESL programs, 4,704 (14%)
Economically disadvantaged, 23,707 (72%)
*Applies to foreign-born students who have attended school in the U.S. for less than three years
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Mr and Mrs Garcia were BOTH in the country illegally
Mr and Mrs Garcia were BOTH in the country illegally.
Jose had expired plates.
No driver's license
therefore no insurance
outstanding warrents
fake social security card ( I don't think you pay taxes with a fake SSN ?)
working illegally in construction
IMO, many Americans would gladly work a good construction job.
I also feel sorry for the kids, but the parents made poor choices. It's their fault not mine.
They both deprived an American of a job, for the last ten years.
Who was the employer ?
Did either of them have medical insurance ? If not, taxpayers paid for the borth of the kids.
If they did, it's called insurace fraud. They are illegal.
It's stories like this that anger Americans. Our jobs are stolen. Our taxes pay their hospital bills and educate their kids.
We need strong enforcement of illegal immigration laws. Call your elcted reps and demand they sponsor the SAVE ACT.
