01-17-2021, 01:28 PM
Quote:Alvaro Hernandes saw his wife and recently born twin daughters for the last time through a video call on 5 January before he was deported from immigration detention in Kansas to Guatemala, after living in the US for 12 years. Shortly after Hernandes and his wife brought their two newborn daughters from the hospital in June 2020, he was detained for being undocumented and handed over to immigration customs enforcement by a local sheriff after he called 911 when he was unable to get in contact with his wife for a brief period of time and wasn’t aware there was a non-emergency number for the police.‘He just cries and cries': families grapple with US deportations amid pandemic | US immigration | The Guardian
Despite testimonials from family members, friends, his longtime boss and landlord, an immigration court in Kansas City, Missouri, ordered the deportation to proceed, citing a 2008 DUI conviction. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Hernandes’s family has only been able to speak with him through expensive video calls and collect phone calls. While imprisoned, Hernandes also contracted coronavirus. “I don’t know if I will ever see him again. He just cries and cries during our visits on camera,” said his wife, Sierra Schauvilegee. “He has been tormented by being separated from us.”
The couple met in 2017 through a mutual friend. She described Alvaro as hardworking, an employee in the agriculture industry working on a cattle ranch for the past eight years for $10 an hour, often working 12-hour days, six to seven days a week. “He prays one day he will be reunited with his babies,” added Schauvilegee.
Thousands of immigrants with US-born children are deported every year, creating economic instability for the families left behind and disrupting children’s health and development. But children also face deportation orders themselves. Johanna Torres, an immigration lawyer based in Laredo, California, is currently appealing against the deportation order for a three-year-old boy.