“Doing it the Right Way” Brings Heartbreak for California Family
When Miguel Angel Moreno Badillo left his family’s California home a year ago this week for an interview at the U.S. consulate in Juarez, Mexico, he thought he would be gone for a few months and return with an immigrant visa in hand, a step closer to a green card and eventually U.S. citizenship.
Miguel’s wife Edita, a U.S. citizen, submitted a petition to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on his behalf in 2008, the same year the couple gave birth to a son. Since marrying Edita in 2006, Miguel had filled the role of a caring stepfather to Edita’s three older children. His job as a veterinarian’s assistant at a dairy farm provided an important source of income for the family. Together the couple saved toward their dream of buying a home. They paid taxes and looked forward to the day when Miguel would be granted lawful permanent residence.
But at his interview in Juarez, Miguel found out that because he was undocumented when his brother brought him to the United States at age 17, he was barred from returning to the country for 10 years.
Since that fateful day, the hopeful and stable life the Morenos once led has unraveled. The family’s savings, once nearly enough for a down payment on a house, has dwindled to only a few thousand dollars. Edita’s three oldest children have not seen their stepfather in nearly a year. Edita and Miguel’s two-year-old son was hospitalized after he contracted rotavirus during a visit to Mexico last summer. The couple’s contact is now limited to phone calls and weekend visits in Tijuana.
Edita struggles to cope. She developed severe depression and anxiety and suffers frequent panic attacks, which forced her to take a leave of absence from her job at a school. She lost her car and has moved with her children twice because she could not pay rent. Now the father of her three oldest children is suing her for full custody.
The U.S. government offers waivers to the 10-year reentry bar for immigrants whose U.S. families would suffer serious hardship in their absence. When Edita applied for a waiver for her husband last year, the government asked for more evidence. She resubmitted the application in June, detailing the health problems she and her son had suffered. Other than a receipt from the post office and despite calls to USCIS, she has not received any response or confirmation that anyone has looked at the application.
USCIS says that between 2005 and 2008, the number of these waivers, called I-601 forms, submitted in Juarez rose by 570%. To help eliminate the backlog, the agency hired two additional adjudicators and enlisted additional offices to review applications. But as of 2009, USCIS reported that only half of the I-601 forms submitted in Juarez were approved within a few days. The rest required further review and took 12 to 15 months to process. For families like the Morenos, that wait has dire consequences.
“We were raising our family and following the laws. We want to do it the right way,” said Edita, who started a Change.org petition on her husband's behalf. “But I feel like it’s a trap. Not just my family is affected, but it affects thousands of families, and it has scarred us.
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Tara Tidwell Cullen
manages communications for an immigration legal services organization in Chicago. She formerly served as managing editor to Cultural Survival Quarterly, an indigenous rights magazine.
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