Three Teenage Boys To Be Deported To Mexico Alone

“Give me your tired, your poor/ your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me/ I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Emma Lazarus’ words emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty are undeniably optimistic; our doors are not open to all comers and they never have been.

Sergio Gonzalez, 17, Carlos Gonzalez, 16, and Ruben Tarango, 17, felt Lady Liberty’s door slam shut in their young faces earlier this month. The boys, children of parents who brought them here from Chihuahua, Mexico a decade ago, were apprehended outside of their high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They were standing outside of a fence on the high school’s property when a passing police officer thought the students looked suspicious because they were passing something through the fence. The officer asked the boys for identification; he suspected that their cards were false and turned them over to the U.S. Border Patrol. The Border Patrol then took the three unaccompanied minors from Albuquerque, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas to deport them. The parents did not dare accompany their children or raise a fuss: they are illegal too and eligible for deportation. Now Sergio, Carlos and Ruben have one hundred and twenty days to remain in the country before they must return, without parents, to Chihuahua, Mexico.

The deportation order could have been appealed due to the U.S. Border Patrol’s policy not to enforce immigration laws at schools, churches, funerals, and religious ceremonies. However, the boys’ attorneys (one of whom is a good friend of mine from law school—yes, another acquaintance that makes me cool) counseled the families to consider that the appeal would most likely have been unsuccessful – they are undocumented – and that an appeal might have encouraged the Border Patrol to widen its net to deport all undocumented members of both families. By volunteering to leave the country and waiving their right to appeal, the boys protect their families and gain the 120-day reprieve, enough to allow them to finish the current school year, and the right to immediately apply for a visa to re-enter the United States.

Too often the stories of homeless and tempest-tossed immigrants end in tragedy: death in the desert, in a cargo box in a U.S. port or on a raft in the sea. By contrast, this case seems far less tragic. However, it is a prime example of how our immigration policy is too haphazardly applied to be fair to the large numbers of people who desire to live, work and learn legally in our great nation.

For example, the policy to leave immigrants alone in familial, religious or educational settings serves a humane purpose. Such kindness contrasts with the unofficial policy regarding immigrant work that leaves immigrant workers unprotected in unsafe and exploitative working conditions. As people who live in towns with a population of undocumented workers can attest, the Border Patrol also rarely enforces immigration laws in the thousands of places where undocumented workers are known to work for less than market wages (please see e.g., agricultural work and outside of Home Depot) to make our consumer goods and food cheaper, our pools, lawns and houses clean, and to facilitate our busy lifestyles by taking care of our children. All people who work in these positions are not here illegally, but a good many of them are. All of the undocumented workers are not of Hispanic heritage, but Hispanic immigrants are in greater danger of apprehension because a Spanish accent raises more suspicion than does an accent from anywhere else in the world. The economic and leisure-time gains of illegal labor are enjoyed by millions of Americans, while the terror of “la migra” is suffered by few.

The boys are not looking forward to packing up and heading back to Mexico alone. Says Ruben, who has been in the U.S. for ten years, “I like playing games and am into sports, especially boxing and the Philadelphia Eagles. I’m as American as any other teenage boy in the United States.” Unfortunately, he’s not. "What’s particularly frustrating about this case,” says Chamiza Atencio-Pacheco, one of the attorneys representing the boys, “is that in Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court ruled that once a public education system is in place, the state has a duty to educate all children, regardless of nationality. This is a duty that Board members, administrators, and teachers here in Albuquerque take very seriously. The actions of the Border Patrol make this duty, and the rights of children to receive an education, meaningless and profoundly disempowers educators and families." The Albuquerque Public Schools Board President was more blunt. She pointed out that the Border Patrol should never have been called because the officer would not have approached the boys had they been Anglo.

The School Board President’s accusation may or may not be true. The police officer who apprehended the kids claimed that he wasn’t aware that the area just on the other side of the school fence was school property. His explanation sounds disingenuous, but the officer was only doing his job and in these times, one cannot be too angry with the INS for shuffling off people who are here in contravention of the law back to their home countries. Yet, I cannot support an immigration policy that looks the other way when it is convenient to support decadent middle-class lifestyles, but coldly rips apart families at all other times. I don’t have any answers to the conundrum, nor do I have anyone at whom I can point a finger of blame, which is frustrating. I’d like for first-generation immigrants to have the opportunity to bask in the reflected light of liberty’s golden door. On the other hand, I don’t know how to balance the staggering number of people who want to be admitted in this country with America’s real constraints on resources, security concerns, and the pace at which immigrants can be effectively absorbed into the system.

The attorneys for the boys are optimistic about their clients’ chances of making it back to the United States legally. Civil Rights Watch wishes them the best. We’ll leave the light on for them.