Thread: Akron immigrant and mother prepares for possible deportation

Akron immigrant and mother prepares for possible deportation

March 3, 2017 - 10:22 PM | Updated: March 4, 2017 - 11:27 PM








Rosa Saltos has made arrangements for her three sons should she get deported next week. They’ll stay with her ex-husband’s second wife.

She trusts the woman. And the alternative, taking them with her, she cannot bear.

The Ecuadorian woman heads to Cleveland on Tuesday to visit with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

She’s been making the regular visits for 13 years since she was caught with a fake Social Security number and green card. She pleaded guilty to the felony, which has not threatened her legal status as an immigrant under past presidents.

In the past, immigration enforcers allowed her to stay because of the nature of the crime, her ties to the community and her family and what would happen if she were returned to Ecuador. But she’s not sure President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcers will take the same stance.

The threat of deportation has pushed Akron-area immigrants with precarious or no legal status into hiding. In the weeks after Trump’s victory in November, immigration attorneys and advocates say applications for political asylum have been processed more slowly. Immigrants caught illegally crossing the border no longer get to petition for such visas.

Parents are not sending their children to school. Should the adults not return from work, legal documents have been drafted to identify their children’s new guardians.

Some immigrants with American children are forfeiting public assistance because applying for it might signal their location to federal immigration officers.

The attorneys and advocates say they haven’t seen an increase in deportation cases, but they expect it. In the past four months, they’ve focused efforts on educating immigrants on their rights and assisting those with a legal claim to citizenship.

Meanwhile, Saltos is preparing for the worst. Speaking with her three boys at her pro-bono attorney’s office in Cuyahoga Falls, she has accepted that if she is detained and returned to Ecuador, her boys must stay here.

“It’s hard to talk about that day,” she said, losing control of her quick-paced English and crying.

In 1998, Saltos followed her husband to America on a travel visa. Her motivation was, and always has been, her children.

Her oldest son, Holger, was a toddler with Down syndrome when she made the trip. Searching for the best health care in the Western Hemisphere, she settled in New York City with her husband, a chauffeur with a background in selling jewelry. She holds a degree in economics from a university in Ecuador. When she came to the U.S., she cleaned houses.

The man she married never wanted a second or third child, she said. He brought up abortion before Matthew, the youngest, was born at a hospital in Akron 15 years ago.

And so Andrew — the soft-spoken middle child — adamantly opposes abortion. Andrew,18, works part time at the Akron hospital where he was born, hopes to study special and early childhood education this fall and volunteers every year at a camp for disabled children.

“My mother told me my father wanted me aborted as well. And the reason why is because of Holger, when he was born,” Andrew said. “Why he wanted me and Matthew aborted was because he didn’t want another child with a disability.”

Andrew has conservative Latin roots. He opposes same-sex marriage and gun control.

He and his brothers attend Mass weekly at a church that took in their mother when she left her husband shortly before the youngest son was born. The brothers watch Sunday services on TV when their mom works weekends to fill out a 32-hour week as a nursing assistant in oncology or cleans homes and offices on the side.

Andrew said he wouldn’t have known who to vote for last year if he had turned 18 before the election.

“Early on, I was for Trump and she was for Hillary,” he said, motioning to his mom while holding his older brother’s hand to keep it from shaking. “But it was just to the point where we kind of mattered more about immigration. We wanted her to stay. I mean, any day we could — anybody could — have abortions, same-sex marriage, all that, as long as I can keep my mom.”

For years, Cuyahoga Falls immigration attorney Farhad Sethna has represented Saltos and her boys at no cost.

Sethna, an Indian immigrant who studied in Texas and teaches immigration law at the University of Akron, will drive to Brooklyn Heights with Saltos and another client, a man with four

American daughters, to see how aggressively federal officials are employing Trump’s new immigration orders.

He’s passionate about his heritage, having become a naturalized citizen, and helping others.

He lists his address, not his clients’, on applications for deferred action.

The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals signed by President Barack Obama gives minors brought to America a chance to avoid deportation. But putting their addresses on applications would let ICE know where their parents live.

Saltos had planned to buy a home this year for her sons.

Holger recently turned 21 and has sponsored his mother’s application for a green card — a real chance at citizenship this time.

The felony conviction that haunts her could undermine it all. It stemmed from a visit nearly 20 years ago to what she said she thought was an attorney’s office in Queens, New York.

The sign outside. The interpreter. The suits. It all looked so real to her. And she spoke no English to question otherwise. Plus she and her husband needed the documents so they could open a jewelry store.

They paid the $400 and came back in a week to retrieve the papers.

Filing her taxes, she came to the conclusion that they had been duped. In the middle of her divorce, she suspects that someone told federal officials that she was in possession of the
bogus legal documents. Ohio revoked her driver’s license, which came as a surprise when an officer pulled her over for speeding in Pennsylvania.

She returned to Ohio and pleaded guilty. “I was so afraid to lose my children,” she said.

Now, that familiar fear is back again. This time, if she is detained, she may go back to Ecuador. But she’s willing to leave her boys behind.

Crime in Ecuador is worse for those unfamiliar with local customs, she explained. In the capital of Quito, armed robberies and muggings are common. Along the Colombian border, the situation is worse.

The hospital where she now works — the same hospital where she gave birth to her two youngest children — saved her oldest son when his kidneys failed him in 2008.

“I want to say thank you to my country,” she said. “This is my town. This is my country. I am no citizen. But this is my country. And I love United State. I love Akron. I love Ohio. I love all the people around me. I’m no criminal.”

http://www.ohio.com/news/local/akron...ation-1.751221

So, another illegal immigrant with a real job at a hospital???

THIS IS INSANE!

What happened to all the farm work they came to do?

I am "no criminal"...but I STOLE someone's SS#.

Get her out.

I thought we were spending billions, fighting real wars, curtailing Americans activities to fight a 'war on terror'.

With that thought in mind, why would someone who has a fake ID be considered anything but a threat and worthy of deportation.

Using a fake ID is a danger to this country and if they have an ID belonging to someone else - that's a crime against that person.

Using benefits under false pretenses is theft - and over such a long period of time - it's grand theft.

There are a lot of crimes this woman has committed. Consider what would happen to a regular American run-of-the-mill thief who stole this much and did this much damage? Prison, I hope.

I don't see anyone lining up and crying big tears writing up sob stores for criminals that get sent to prison, leave their children.

She lied, she stole, she used this country and it's people for a very long time. Send her home - now?

Certainly, she wanted a better life. Any criminal does his/her dirty deeds because they 'want a better life'.

No difference -

Our government, the democrats and the republicans, the news media, the corporations of this country have all worked in tandem to bring the people of this country down.

None of them have any respect for us - none of them. We have to admit that. There is no two-party system - it's all one party and they don't consider us their employer.