Dubravka looks like your typical 20-year-old college student in New York City, but she lives with a fear most students in the U.S. do not. The fear of her family being separated.
Dubravka looks like your typical 20-year-old college student in New York City.
She’s studying business and working to pay her way through college, but she lives with a fear most students in the U.S. do not. The fear of her family being separated.
“If we came together, we leave together,” said Dubrvaka, who didn’t want to publicly share her last name in fear of retaliation.
Her family brought her to the Tri-State three years ago to escape the violence in her home country of Ecuador where she said she lived with the fear of getting kidnapped or killed on a daily basis.
“It was getting worse and worse,” she said.
She now has a new fear. Since she came to the U.S. as a minor, she has a special immigrant juvenile visa. Her older family members who fled to the U.S., do not. She’s worried they will be ordered back to Ecuador under the new presidential administration.
“If I go there now, I have nothing to go back to, we left everything,” Dubravka said.
Her family’s not alone.
“I feel sad because all my life I lived with my dad with my family,” said Antonio, whose father Enrique brought him to New Jersey to escape the violence in Peru.
Antonio also has a juvenile visa, his father doesn’t. When Antonio turns 18, his father will be deported. They asked we not use their real names for fear of being targeted.
“I feel sad because all my life I lived with my day, my family,” he said.
His father broke down in tears at the thought of being separated.
“I’m scared they will separate me from my son because I’ve spent my life with him,” said Enrique. “I feel embarrassed because when I came to this country I did it because I know my country doesn’t have the possibilities for my son.”
“I need him, he’s my support,” Antonio said.
They’re worried new immigration policies under President-elect Donald Trump could be harsher and have devastating impacts on their families. President Trump said his administration will crack down on day one after taking office on Monday.
“There’s so much uncertainty right now,” said attorney Veronica Cardenas who represents both families.
“The statements of Homan, of Trump about how people should be afraid, that’s what they’ve said people should be afraid, and so they’re going to make sure that when people come the conditions are so horrific that they don’t want to stay to make their case for asylum,” Cardenas said.
Cardenas has first-hand experience. Before representing immigrants in private practice, she worked as an ICE prosecutor for the federal government under the last three presidents.
“Under Trump, as a trial attorney, I didn’t even have to say anything, I just needed to be in that spot to show a presence of the government,” Cardenas said about being inside immigration court hearings. “The law was already written, their cases were already decided before they even sat before the judge and made their pleas and that was very difficult to just sit on the sidelines and watch.”
She anticipates more people will be detained and turned away at the border after President Trump takes office and that pending and new cases will move more quickly, with judges have less discretion to make decisions.
“As Americans we have a choice, how do we want to be read in history, as a nation that follows our laws humanely or as one that will stop at nothing to enforce it,” Cardenas said.
For children like Dubravka and Antonio, they didn’t make the decision to come to the U.S., their family members did, but someone else could soon decide whether their families remain together.
“It’s really hard for everybody, It’s not easy to leave your country,” Dubravka said. “Nobody wants to leave their country to look for the thing that they cannot find in their own place.”
There are more than 11 million non-citizens in the U.S. and the federal government said they don’t have the resources to apprehend all of them.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sets priorities. The current administration says it targets those who pose a threat to national security or public safety and they receive their legal due process. As for how that policy could change, the Department of Homeland Security told Eyewitness News to reach out to the president-elect’s transition team which hasn’t responded.
ICE spokesperson Marie Ferguson said in a statement: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations intelligence driven operations target public safety threats, such as criminal noncitizens and gang members, who have violated our nation’s immigration laws, including those who illegally re-enter the country after being removed and immigration fugitives ordered removed by federal immigration judges. ERO Officers prioritize enforcement actions in accordance with the Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law issued by Secretary Mayorkas on Sept. 30, 2021, and reinstituted on June 28 – obtaining and reviewing entire criminal and administrative records and any other investigative information available, when taking decisive law enforcement actions.
Noncitizens placed into removal proceedings receive their legal due process from federal immigration judges in the immigration courts, which are administered by the Executive Office for Immigration Review. EOIR is an agency within the U.S. Department of Justice and is separate from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Immigration judges in these courts make decisions based on the merits of each individual case. ERO officers carry out the removal decisions made by the federal immigration judges.”
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Dubravka looks like your typical 20-year-old college student in New York City, but she lives with a fear most students in the U.S. do not. The fear of her family being separated.
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