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  1. #1
    Senior Member Brian503a's Avatar
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    Migrant laws breaking hearts, homes

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... 9933.story

    Migrant laws breaking hearts, homes
    Forced to uproot from Illinois, the Alvarezes are among thousands of families affected by deportations, bans and tougher enforcement of border security


    By Hugh Dellios
    Tribune foreign correspondent

    March 13, 2006

    APASEO, Mexico -- After months spent trying to keep her family together, April Alvarez will pack up with her two children in the next few weeks and the three U.S. citizens will move home again to Round Lake, Ill.

    April's husband, Daniel Alvarez, will stay behind at the rough-hewn, concrete-floored house of his parents in this poor central Mexican town, unless he decides to try to sneak back into the United States.

    An illegal immigrant who worked as a waiter in Round Lake Beach, Ill., Daniel Alvarez was banned from the U.S. for 10 years in November, primarily for immigration violations but also because he had used drugs, although he insists only when he was younger.

    The Alvarezes' struggle to stay together, far from the comfortable life they had hoped to give their children in America, illustrates one of the less-familiar but particularly wrenching dilemmas in the U.S. immigration system that the U.S. Congress is trying to fix this month.

    Immigrant advocates say thousands of families have been split by deportations, bans and stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws. While Congress is more focused on border security and getting tough with illegal immigrants, the families are pleading for understanding of their plights.

    Until last week, the Alvarezes were determined to remain together in their new life in Mexico. Proponents of stricter immigration say that such a move is the logical consequence for marrying an undocumented immigrant, and that such families have no one to blame but themselves.

    But the Alvarezes discovered that uprooting to Mexico wasn't so easy. They say it's hardly fair for the children--Lily, 3, and Nathaniel, almost 2 --to have to live in the poverty that led Alvarez to sneak into the U.S. in the first place in 1994.

    "I know I am a U.S. citizen, but it hurts," said Chicago-born April Alvarez, 24, sitting at her in-laws' kitchen table. "I know in different circumstances, the U.S. is about family values, but when it comes to undocumented immigrants, they don't care. They treat Daniel like I don't need a husband and our kids don't need a father."

    Alvarez, who gave up a bank job in Round Lake, moved to Apaseo in January, still looks a bit numb in her new surroundings. She said the children sorely missed their father after they were split up, but the three of them don't speak Spanish and are still trying to adjust to roosters crowing and not having a bathtub or hot running water.

    "I don't know how good the hospitals are, or the pediatricians," April said. "Lily misses home. She used to take baths. She used to run around barefoot a lot."

    The U.S. Senate took up immigration reform this month, with the Senate Judiciary Committee facing an end-of-March deadline for assembling a bill. The proposals include channeling illegal immigrants into a guest-worker program, making illegal immigration a felony and speeding up deportations.

    The issues have raised emotions for and against immigration, as was seen when tens of thousands of immigrants and immigrant backers filled the streets of Chicago's Loop on Friday to protest some of the more stringent measures before Congress.

    McCain, Kennedy push variance

    The family issue is addressed in a proposal by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). It would give the Department of Homeland Security more authority to waive immigration violations in case of "extreme hardship" to U.S.-citizen spouses or children, and allow similar exceptions for immigrants who have applied for green cards through their spouses or employers.

    In a separate bill, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) has proposed special visas for 35 undocumented immigrants whose Illinois families have been split up by their deportations or bans. The Alvarezes are not among those included.

    Each year, more children become vulnerable to such situations. A Pew Hispanic Center report last week estimated that 3.1 million U.S.-born children have a parent who is undocumented, and that increasingly the illegal population consists of young families.

    Critics of lenient immigration policies say that, rather than sympathy, the U.S. ought to send the families a stern message by keeping out more illegal immigrants so the situations don't occur so often.

    "I don't mean to be insensitive, but at some point you have to draw the line or the law becomes meaningless," said Daniel Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "Why doesn't [Mexico] consider granting citizenship to the spouse to go there? Why is it always our obligation?"

    The families say the reality is more complicated.

    "I don't have a right to find love with someone?" asked Bertha Rangel, 25, a U.S. citizen from Joliet whose undocumented husband was deported and banned for 20 years last year. "He didn't even have a speeding ticket, criminal charges, nothing, but I guess that doesn't count."

    Rangel moved with the couple's two children to her husband's hometown in Jalisco state last year to be with him. But she returned to Joliet this month with the kids because she is four months pregnant.

    Daniel Alvarez, 27, was working at Applebee's Neighborhood Bar & Grill in Round Lake Beach, Ill., where he earned $3.90 per hour plus tips and trained other waiters. Last week he admitted he provided false identification to get the job; his supervisors say he was reliable and well-liked before leaving the job.

    "In this business, it's tough [to find good employees], but any time you'd see him on the schedule, you would know you have your staff on board," said Carl Davies, an Applebee's manager, who said the company requires identification when hiring and that he knew little about Alvarez's personal situation.

    Alvarez's problems began in November, when he left the U.S. for an interview at the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to consider his application for legal residency through his wife. They had filed the application in 2002 after they were married. But at the interview, instead of granting Alvarez a green card, a consular officer banned him from returning to the U.S.

    In a letter to Alvarez's attorney in January, the consular officer, Tiffney Johnson, explained that his "primary ineligibility" to return to the U.S. for 10 years was based on his having entered the U.S. illegally a second time after his original crossing. He also was banned for three years "for drug use," she wrote, although the two bans will run concurrently.

    No exceptions, consulate says

    "Although we understand the difficult circumstances of his family, ... the law does not provide for any exceptions," Johnson wrote.

    Alvarez said the officer knew about his second entry into the U.S. in 1998 because he told her about it when asked at the interview, which he said lasted five minutes. He had gone home to Mexico that time to visit his ailing mother.

    He said he also responded honestly when a doctor asked him at a required medical exam the day before if he had ever taken drugs. He said he had taken cocaine "four or five times," the last time at his 23rd birthday party, four years earlier.

    "I said, `Don't do this to me. I've got two kids up there,'" Alvarez said, who pleaded with the officer to look at his family photos. "I felt as if I had been run over by a semi or something."

    Since then, Alvarez has not found a job that would pay him more than $80 per week in Apaseo. The couple put their house in Round Lake up for sale, but it has not sold yet, and they are running out of savings to pay the mortgage and utility bills.

    "We don't believe in divorce," said April Alvarez. "I don't feel I should be in the U.S. with my kids without their father."

    ----------

    hdellios@tribune.com
    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  2. #2

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    Well isn't that sad?


    Here is the reality.
    I am an American Citizen. I met and married my wife three and one half years ago in Philippines. She already had two children. We have since had a third child. As soon as we were married, I filed a petition to immigrate her and the kids to the US. Finally, after more than three years, at a cost of over $2000 for petition fees, visa fees, medical clearance, police clearances, DNA tests, and records fees as well as 3 separate interviews at the US Embassy in Manila, we recently obtained temporary non-immigrant visas for them to come to the US for up to 2 years. Once they get to the US, it will cost at least another $1000 in application fees and other expenses to obtain "green cards" and legal permanent resident status. Beleive me, it is not easy to be separated from your family for that long, but I take pride in the fact that we followed the law. That is what it takes to do this legally, that is what honorable and law abiding prospective immigrants and their sponsors go through. And for many people in my situation, it takes even longer to accompish, often 4 to 6 years for immediate family members.

    Why then should anyone who enters the country illegally get special treatment? Why does our idiot President, along with McCain and Kennedy, propose granting them what is effectively an amnesty.



    Sorry, but I just can't muster much sympathy for these people.

  3. #3
    Senior Member rebellady1964's Avatar
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    legal4mykidsfuture wrote:
    Sorry, but I just can't muster much sympathy for these people.
    And I agree with you. Afterall, here your family is trying to do things legally and you are getting screwed around. The illegals are getting rewarded. Since they broke our laws, they are paying the price for it and I think they should pay! It's not anyone's fault BUT THEIR OWN!
    "My ancestors gave their life for America, the least I can do is fight to preserve the rights they died for"

  4. #4
    Senior Member moosetracks's Avatar
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    I hope our young people will think twice about marrying foreigners...what challenges they will be faced with. There's also social differences, one had to deal with.

    A friend of mine married an Arab.!! He had already been married 3 or 4 times...and you know it was just to stay in the country...then he married my friend. Seems she is always pregnant..and now she is following Muslim customs and I guess her kids will have to be raised that way...and she seems like she worries a lot about whether he will ever return to his country and take the kids!
    Do not vote for Party this year, vote for America and American workers!

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