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Posted on Wed, Sep. 27, 2006



A bittersweet homecoming as hope fades
Deported mother knows Guatemala lacks comforts her kids enjoy in U.S.
DÁNICA COTO AND PETER ST. ONGE
dcoto@charlotteobserver.com | pstonge@charlotteobserver.com

The journey to Guatemala began with a bus ride, from jail in Etowah County, Alabama, to federal court in Atlanta. It was May 9, and Deysi Ramírez had spent 46 days in prison. Soon, she would be free in her homeland.

Twelve years ago, she had come to the U.S. the way millions of immigrants had before her, with bus rides from Guatemala through Mexico, then two days of walking, a swim across the Rio Grande, an arranged car ride to some train tracks, an arranged train ride into Texas.

Now she was being deported.

In Atlanta, she signed U.S. and Guatemalan travel documents, and a Guatemalan consul interviewed her to confirm she was a citizen there. The next night, Deysi's arms and legs were shackled, and she rode another bus seven hours to Louisiana. There, four women and 104 men boarded a Justice Prisoner Alien Transfer flight at 8 a.m. It was one of about a dozen such flights that leave the U.S. every week.

Before takeoff, a man approached her. He had gang symbols tattooed on his arm and neck, Deysi remembers. What's up, sweet thing! he said.

Deysi looked out the window.

She remembers thinking of her partner, Ray, back in Monroe, and about their children. Only Kayla, the oldest at 11, understood where her mother was going, and why. Kayla wondered what this would mean to their family.

Will we move to Guatemala? she asked Ray.

I don't know, he said.

If we go to Guatemala, can we all come back to the U.S.?

No, Ray said.

Kayla, along with 9-year-old Sammy and 5-year-old Sandy, were U.S. citizens. Deysi and Ray were illegal immigrants. Until now, Deysi had contemplated simply crossing back to the U.S. and getting a ride to North Carolina. But on the day she left Etowah, a federal judge told her she would be jailed for years if caught in the U.S. again.

Soon, she would have a new option to consider.

Not like Monroe

At the Guatemala City airport, Deysi noticed a man following her. She walked faster, scared that he was trying to rob her. Hey, what's your name? the man asked.Deysi turned.

Her brother, Natanael, was a skinny 12-year-old when she last saw him. He was 25 now, with lean muscles and long sideburns.

They took three beat-up buses to reach San Juan Sacatepéquez, near the village where Deysi's family lived. The last bus stopped in front of a landfill, leaving them a half-mile walk along a rutted dirt road littered with lazy dogs.

Most who lived in the village, Comunidad de Ruiz, were Indians of Mayan descent. Women sold tortillas, vegetables and live geese and chickens at the marketplace, while men cultivated roses and chrysanthemums on sloping hills. The village smelled like smoke because people cooked outside; few had electric stoves. Garbage trucks didn't service the town, so residents tossed their trash into piles along sidewalks and cliffs.

When Deysi reached the gate of her family's home, she saw the back of a woman. Argelia, her mother, was across the yard, washing clothes by hand.

Natanael called out. Argelia turned. Deysi walked to her. Their eyes filled with tears. I'm sorry I've been gone so long, Deysi whispered.

Mother and daughter had their first meal together in 12 years, and they talked into the night. Deysi showed her pictures of her grandchildren.

I can't wait to see them, Argelia said.

Deysi said nothing.

Major adjustments expected

"Ray, is that you?"

Deysi stood in a barren yard, trying to get better cell phone reception. Behind her was her family's three-bedroom house, built with cinder blocks and covered by a tin roof that baked its occupants when the sun came out.

"Hello?"

Justiniano, Deysi's late father, had built the house with money that Deysi and another brother had sent from North Carolina. Deysi's arrival meant seven people, including three children, shared the cramped home.

"I can't hear you."

It was Kayla.

"Hi, honey, how are you?" Deysi said. "They're giving you an award tomorrow? I'm proud of you."

Next were Sammy and Sandy, who still didn't know why their mother was in Guatemala. When Sandy asked what she was doing there, Deysi cheerfully replied, "Talking with you!"

Tears streaked her cheeks.

Deysi was struggling. She was bored after only a few days, and she missed things she had forgotten were luxuries in her village. Instead of flushable toilets and running water, here she turned a makeshift handle and cranked up a bucket of water from a well about 200 feet deep. She had difficulty imagining her children doing the same.

Certainly, this village would be an adjustment for them all. In Monroe, they had settled into a comfortable life, with health insurance and a 401(k) through work, with public education from the taxes they paid, with pizza as a treat every weekend.

Here, her Guatemalan family was among the 75 percent in the country who lived in poverty, thanks in part to a 36-year civil war that displaced almost 1 million people. Schools were free only until the sixth grade, and affordable health care in their village came only from Christian missionaries, who offered it free with a sermon. In Argelia's home, money came from Natanael's 26-year-old wife, Leticia, who worked seven days a week at Pollo Campero, a popular, fast-food chicken restaurant. Leticia's pay: 1,400 quetzales a month, about $175.

Deysi decided not to get a job yet. If the children joined her from Monroe, Ray wanted her to concentrate on finding a school. He could send money until he eventually joined them there.

Ray also wanted Deysi to keep an eye on the children. He worried about what international agencies had warned for years -- that children were known to disappear in Guatemala, stolen for unauthorized adoptions.

There was an alternative: Deysi's brother had called from Monroe. He was worried about Kayla going to Guatemala.

She's doing so well in school here, he told Deysi.

I can keep her.

Deysi had another idea. She missed her family -- and the life they had in Monroe. She decided to tell Ray she was willing to risk jail. She was ready to hire a coyote at the border.

She wanted to risk crossing illegally again.

COMING THURSDAY: The decision.


The Story So Far

Kayla Ramírez's mother, Deysi, was arrested in March during a routine traffic stop in Monroe. She faces deportation to Guatemala for having failed to follow up on an application for U.S. asylum. Kayla, 11, has adjusted at home, but she and her brother and sister face an uncertain future.






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