When Viviana Andazola Marquez drove her father to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Centennial, Colo., earlier this month, she thought he’d be leaving with his green card.
The Oct. 12 meeting was supposed to be Melecio Andazola Morales’ last official interview before being approved for permanent residency in the U.S.
“He was really excited,” Marquez, a senior at Yale University, told As It Happens host Carol off. “You know, making plans for the future, assuming that he was going to have his green card.”
Instead, he was arrested by three Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and placed in a detainment centre, from which he faces deportation to Mexico.
“He’s a little bit anxious, has been having trouble sleeping, but is hopeful that he’ll get out soon and wants to be with his family soon,” Marquez said.
She’s written about the experience in a New York Times opinion piece called “I Accidentally Turned My Dad In to Immigration Services.”
Morales, a father of four, is the sole breadwinner for his family. He’s been living, working and paying taxes in the U.S. since 1998 and has no criminal record, Marquez said.
While Marquez and her siblings are U.S. citizens, she said her father’s undocumented status has always loomed over her family.
She remembers being little and driving to the mall with her parents and grandmother. In the parking lot, her parents noticed there were ICE officials in the mall and started whispering about “la migra.”
“They just explained, ‘Well, we can’t go in with you, but you can go in with your grandma,'” Marquez said. “That’s kind of when I realized that there was difference between me and my parents and how we were living in the U.S.”
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