Where Are the Immigrants Today?

Well, CNN reports that Eduardo Gonzalez is getting ready to be deployed overseas for a third time as a petty officer second class with the U.S. Navy. While he prepares to serve his country, his wife, Mildred, faces deportation to Guatemala -- her home country that she hasn't seen since 1989. Eduardo worries about what will happen to his young son, Eduardo Jr, if she’s deported.

Mildred came to the United States with her mother in 1989 when she was 5 years old. They were granted political asylum because of their status as war refugees from Guatemala (whose military- incidentally- received U.S. training, weapons, and money from the 1950s through the 1990s). Although her mother gained legal status in 2004, Mildred was denied permanent status due to a technicality in immigration laws. Gonzalez himself entered the country without papers, crossing the Mexican border with his family when he was about 10. He joined the Navy as a so-called "green-card sailor" and became a U.S. citizen in July 2005. Now, while he prepares to be deployed and serve his country, he has to plead with the government not to deport his wife and young son off to a foreign land.

Read Gonzalez's Congressional Testimony

Meanwhile, Liliana, 29, and her U.S.- born son have been living at the United Church of Christ for a little over a month. Her husband, a homeowner who works two jobs, and her three young children are legal citizens; yet, she faces deportation. The church has offered her sanctuary and protection from the growing anti-immigrant mobs outside. Since Liliana does not want to leave her family behind, she refuses to leave the church and risk deportation. The Mayor has resorted to sending a letter to the Department of Homeland Security requesting for their final adjudication of her case.

Read More at the Ventura Country Star

In Fairfax County, Vicente Crespo, 37, stands in a parking lot between a filling station and a paint store, telling the Washington Post, "I have never seen so many men out here before or so few trucks." A Salvadoran, who shares an apartment with six other Latino immigrants, he explains, "A year ago, I was working all month and getting $15 an hour. Now, if I'm lucky, I get a job for a few hours and they pay $10." Like many immigrants, Crespo faces a sharp regional downturn in housing construction, an increasingly hostile nation, and the prospects of a long, hard winter.

Read More at The Washington Post

All the while, June Everett continues to mourn the death of her sister, Sandra Kenley. Sandra emigrated to the U.S. from Barbados when she was 20 years old and lived in the U.S. legally for almost 33 years. Nurse and grandmother, she was looking forward to her 53^rd birthday. But on her way back from a visit to Barbados with her granddaughter, Sandra was stopped by an ICE officer at the airport. She was taken into detention for an old misdemeanor drug charge, for which she had already fulfilled the court’s requirement and completed her probation. Although she had a serious medical condition, she was detained, denied medical attention and deprived of her medication. Sandra died, suffering and pleading for medical attention - one of 66 immigrants who have died in detention under U.S. custody in the past four years.

Read June's Congressional Testimony

And where are you?

Do you worry that your family will be deported? detained? Do you worry about finding enough income to pay rent? Do you have to fight the law, the government, the nation just to keep your family together? Do you worry that your rights- to medical care, to security, to work, to liberty- will be denied?

Or are you among the lucky few?