Gabriel, the youngest, doesn’t fully understand why his father is away, only that his mom cries and his dad can’t come to his kindergarten graduation.
The family has submitted a green card petition, but backlogs could take six years or longer. Noémi searches for a lawyer who might reunite them sooner.
“The future is all just a blank,” she said.
Christopher: A Nephew’s Race to Find His Uncle
Christopher knew little about immigration policy until his uncle Daniel was taken last June.
Daniel, who has significant intellectual disabilities and limited speech, was strolling in east Los Angeles when agents in an unmarked vehicle cornered him.
Christopher, a US citizen, quickly became the family’s navigator.
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Using ICE’s online tracker, he traced his uncle to a federal building, then to the Adelanto detention center.
After days of calls, a legal aid group found Daniel there, scared and confused.
Then Daniel disappeared from the system. Christopher drove to Adelanto with his sister, searching restaurants, parks, and gas stations.
They didn’t find him.
Eventually, lawyers learned Daniel had been deported to Tijuana, where volunteers at a reception center located him in a local hospital.
He had no idea his family was searching for him.
It took more than nine months to get Daniel paroled back into the US. Christopher now breathes easier, but still worries about other family members without status.
“That ever-looming fear and anxiety, it still exists,” he said.
