Backstory: A Grandfather Fighting Deportation
This week, I wrote for Quartz about an undeniable trend: even though President Barack Obama promised that his administration would focus deportations on felons instead of families, that hasn't been the case. And because executive action is on hold because of an ongoing legal battle, authorities are targeting people who should benefit from deportation relief.
While I was reporting this story, I spoke to lawyers across the country who told me about how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to target immigrants without serious criminal records. Through attorneys in St. Louis, I got in touch with Pedro Rivera Martinez, 48, who is fighting deportation.
A father of six, a stepfather of three, and grandfather of two, Pedro is originally from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, a city bordering Texas. He lives in Clarkton, Missouri, a rural town of around 1,000.
Through his job at a local cotton gin, he supports his wife — who has high blood pressure and can't work — as well as his two youngest children and his two grandchildren, of whom he has custody. Pedro has lived in the U.S. for nearly two decades, and has built a reputation in his community as a hard worker and a family man.
But last May, ICE came to his home to detain and deport him. They came based on a deportation order from the 1980s, as well as a decades-old misdemeanor charge for crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in a vehicle with other undocumented immigrants. Pedro spent a night in jail, and managed to get released after his family made some phone calls, even though ICE wanted to deport him that same week.
"What's going to happen to you?" Pedro said his grandchildren asked when they found out what happened.
Pedro's lawyer, Wesley Schooler, submitted several stays to prevent Pedro's deportation. The most recent one, filed in January, is based on the president's new executive action protecting parents of U.S. citizens, since Pedro should qualify. But an answer has yet to come.
In the meantime, his family, friends, and community are petitioning to stop his deportation. Numerous people wrote letters on his behalf, including the Clarkton mayor and the town's former police chief; a police officer in the neighboring town of Malden; the owner of the cotton company where Pedro works; teachers and board members of the Clarkton school district, and the mayor of neighboring Tallapoosa.
I also spoke to Pedro's stepson, Francisco Cortez, 31, who has faced challenges of his own with the immigration system. He used to be undocumented, and now has residency. He was even featured in a PBS documentary several years ago.
"They’re trying to split our family apart," Francisco told me. "He's the only father figure I've ever had."
I asked Pedro about how he'd feel if he wins his fight against his deportation. "It'd be really beautiful for all of us," he said. "We'd be free."
