sctimes.com
Written by
Stephanie Dickrell
11:38 PM, Jan. 9, 2012

Local families would benefit from an immigration rule change proposed by President Barack Obama, according to a local organization dedicated to helping Latinos in Central Minnesota.

Mayuli Bales is the executive director of Casa Guadalupe Multicultural Communities in Cold Spring, an organization that offers programming and services to help families in a variety of ways.

The proposal would end a requirement that undocumented immigrants with parents or spouses in the United States leave the country first if they wish to file paperwork to forestall deportation on the grounds of family hardship.

The current regulation can split up families for months or even years at a time.

And the effects on the children and wider family can be lasting.

“You can’t go back after that,” Bales said.

The family is living in an everyday crisis, she said, just making sure the children are taken care of.

“We live that here,” she said, with the people the organization helps every day.

When a parent is detained or deported, there’s a ripple effect in the community, she said. It affects school attendance, school performance and community participation.

You hear the conversations of the kids, Bales said, and they sound more like the conversations of adults — worried about money and whether their parents will come home.

The separation of the family is terrible, said Alma Barajas of Cold Spring, as translated by Bales.


Nereida Vargas, 13, (right) and her brother Sam, 11, (left) talk about how they felt when their mom was detained and faced deportation during a visit Monday to Casa Guadalupe in Cold Spring.

Erika Vargas of Cold Spring agreed. She was at Casa Guadalupe on Monday offering to volunteer at the center. She’s having trouble finding work to support her three children, but wants to make use of her time.

She has had a brother in detention and was herself detained in the past, leaving her three children with only her boyfriend to look after them.

“They don’t care about the suffering of the kids,” she said of those who develop immigration rules and regulations.

Bales thinks the proposed change could be a positive step and it wouldn’t disrupt the nuclear family, she said. There’s a lot of economic pressure on the wider community.

“The less stress you give the immigrant community the better,” she said.

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services contributed to this report.

http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll...=2012101100020