"Those poor kids were probably traumatized," she says. "When they grow up, will we prosecute them for murder? Will we put them away for life because their father decided to shoot a man?"
Teresa's mother brought her illegally into the country when she was just a baby. Still, Teresa is legally culpable for entering illegally — even though she has lived here her entire life and had no say in how she entered.
Allan Cameron
Oscar Vasquez
Michael Ratcliff
Erica holds her degree from ASU, a bachelor's in psychology.
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This is the first article this year of
New Times' occasional series
"Are Your Papers in Order?" in which we examine the treatment of undocumented aliens, brown-skinned U.S. citizens, and legal residents at the hands of local and U.S. law enforcement.
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Teresa cannot get a driver's license. She cannot legally work. She is hard-pressed to afford out-of-state tuition required of undocumented students, so higher education is not an option. Now that she is an adult, she has discovered (after consulting 10 immigration lawyers) that it is unlikely she will ever be able to legitimize her status — even though she is married to an American citizen and has an American-citizen daughter.
It is a legal catch-22 that is nearly impossible to avoid.
According to the PEW Hispanic Center, about 15 percent of all undocumented immigrants in the United States are children — close to 1.8 million people. Some of them, like Teresa, do not remember any country other than the United States. No one knows for sure how many of these kids are in Arizona (and a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Plyer vs. Doe, prohibits schools from asking), but it is safe to say there are thousands. Allan Cameron, a former computer-science teacher at Carl Hayden High School, estimated in 2007 testimony before Congress that as many as 80 percent of the kids he taught were illegal immigrants. The non-partisan PEW Hispanic Center estimates that about 65,000 undocumented students graduate from American high schools each year. Some even graduate from college.
Then they hit a wall and become unable to legally work or participate in society.
Legislation called the DREAM Act was introduced again this year in Congress that would provide a conditional pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrant kids. Unless it passes, most will never have the opportunity to legally live or work in the country they have known most of their lives. For them, time is running out.
For others, it is already too late.
Virginia Gutierrez was a straight-A student who graduated with honors from North High School with a 4.2 grade-point average, securing multiple private scholarships to ASU. Her dream was to be a doctor. Instead, she was stopped for a broken taillight and deported to Mexico in 2007, before she was able to start college. Last her friends heard, she was living with her grandmother in Chihuahua, looking for work. Her crime? Entering the United States illegally when she was 9 years old.
After coming to this country with his parents as a teenager, Joe Arvizu made it through three years at North High before he was deported. He had been an award-winning ROTC cadet. Though not a citizen, he was patriotic — his dream was to enter the military to serve this country. Turns out this country did not want him. A trip to the emergency room revealed that he had leukemia. Because he was undocumented and had no health insurance, St. Joseph's Hospital deported him to Mexico. Within months, he was dead. Had he been treated in an American hospital, his chance of recovery would have been 80 percent.
The famous "Wilson Four" were high-achieving undocumented students from Wilson Charter High School in downtown Phoenix. In 2002, while competing at a prestigious, international solar-powered boat competition in New York, they were detained after attempting to see Niagara Falls from the Canadian side. They narrowly avoided deportation when a federal judge tossed out the case, ruling that they were racially profiled. All four had entered the country illegally when they were toddlers.
Manuel Espinoza Vasquez was a junior at ASU when he was pulled over for making an illegal right turn. A star student, he wanted to go to law school. Instead, he found himself navigating deportation proceedings. His case is currently in appeals court. If he is refused a waiver, he will be deported to a country he has not lived in since he was 3 years old.
"The more you try to do the right thing, the more doors close," says Teresa. "If you don't want to break any laws — if you want to do everything by the book — you can't do anything. You feel so helpless."
Karla, 22, is nervous as she drives her black Nissan through Magdalena, Mexico.
The residential roads are an unpaved mess of potholes and rust-colored dust, and she is having trouble remembering the location of her husband's house. She adjusts the rearview mirror, glancing at the brightly colored cinderblock homes haphazardly built halfway up the nearby hills.
Her 15-month-old daughter, Samy, seated in a pink velveteen car seat behind her, begins to fuss. The almost five-hour drive from Phoenix to Magdalena is a long trek for a toddler.
Karla tries to soothe her. "We're almost there, Samy. We're going to see Papi!"
Her voice is heavy from lack of sleep. It is the day before Thanksgiving and Karla has been awake since 3:30 a.m., preparing for the trip. In the trunk, she has packed a small, blue cooler with thick slices of turkey, a can of corn, and frozen mashed potatoes. Bundles of warm blankets, clothes, and a box containing her husband's engineering textbooks from college sit on the floor of the backseat. The trip is one she has both anticipated and dreaded — she misses her husband but hates driving through Mexico.
