I still don’t know if it was the right decision. My client Gilberto’s kids were in the courtroom, and after the immigration judge issued a decision requiring my client to go back to Mexico, I thought it might be comforting for them to see their dad and for their dad to see them. Gilberto’s oldest son would not come up to the television screen, where their dad appeared via video teleconference from Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he was detained, but his daughter – just short of nine years old – did. My heart broke as she told her dad that she loved him in front of the immigration judge who had made the decision to send her dad back to Mexico, the government attorney who could have prevented it, and a courtroom full of strangers.
Gilberto came to the United States in 1996 to make a better life for himself. Here, he met Minerva, and the two married and had three beautiful kids. He worked hard to support his family, and they built a life together in the suburbs of Chicago.
Gilberto’s youngest son, three-year-old Omar, was diagnosed with autism, and Gilberto and Minerva worked hard to ensure that Omar received the treatment he needed to have as normal a life as possible. Gilberto supported the family financially while also taking an active role in Omar’s therapy. He also made sure that his older two kids received the attention they needed, as Minerva had to devote so much time and energy to Omar. He did everything right.
Well, almost everything. Gilberto realized that basic activities in the United States require a social security number. So he made one up, and he used it to work and to open up accounts with DISH and Sears. He paid his bills on time every month, never incurring debt.
Unfortunately, the number Gilberto thought he had made up belonged to a man in Wisconsin, and Gilberto was investigated and ultimately charged with misappropriating an identity document, a felony in Wisconsin. Although Gilberto explained to the detectives that he had made up the number and did not know that it belonged to somebody else, and even though there was never any allegation that Gilberto’s actions caused financial loss to the number’s true owner, Gilberto was convicted of the offense. After serving a short jail sentence, Gilberto was taken into immigration custody, where he was charged with entering the United States without inspection and having a conviction for a “crime involving moral turpitude.”
Because of the language of the statute under which he was convicted, my arguments that Gilberto’s actions were not “morally turpitudinous” failed. As a result, Gilberto did not qualify for an immigration bond, nor did he qualify to seek cancellation of removal--a waiver for undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for more than 10 years and who can demonstrate that their departure would cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to their U.S. citizen and permanent resident family members. I had no doubt that Gilberto’s case met this hardship standard, and that if the immigration judge could consider the facts of his case – rather than a piece of paper documenting a felony conviction – Gilberto would be allowed to stay with his family. But under our current immigration law, the judge had no discretion, and no ability to consider the damage to Gilberto’s family that his deportation would cause.
My only option was to convince the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” in Gilberto’s case and allow Gilberto to stay in the United States with his family. I put together my request, hoping that DHS would do what they had promised they would do in a 2011 memorandum. All to no avail: DHS’s chief counsel denied my request in a brief voicemail message.
Gilberto is in Mexico now, while his family remains in the Chicago area, trying to make ends meet. Minerva planned to return to Mexico with the kids, but at the urging of Omar’s therapists and teachers, she decided to hold off on that plan. If our broken immigration system is ever fixed, if comprehensive immigration reform ever passes, what I want more than anything is for Gilberto and his family to reunite, here in the country where they belong: the United States.
Hena Mansori is the supervising attorney for Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center’s detention project.
Rethink Immigration is a blog series in which National Immigrant Justice Center staff, clients, and volunteers share their unique perspectives and specific recommendations on what Congress and the Obama administration must include in comprehensive immigration reform to create an inclusive, fair, and humane immigration system.