Estela has been living in California for the past decade — she finished high school here, she works here, she fell in love with her husband here.
But everyday the 22-year-old says she lives in fear, whether it’s driving to-and-from her Port Hueneme home or working as a taxpaying employee at an Oxnard medical office.
She is undocumented — one of an estimated 71,000 in Ventura County.
Estela hopes to benefit from a new immigration policy finalized in January by the Department Of Homeland Security. The rule, which takes effect March 4, improves a pathway to legal residency for undocumented spouses and children of United States citizens. Instead of having to wait months or years outside the U.S. to complete the legalization process, qualified undocumented residents can seek a temporary waiver to remain with their loved ones before traveling to their native country for an immigrant visa interview.
If all goes as planned, Estela and her husband, Angel, a legal U.S. citizen, eventually will travel to the U.S. Consulate in violence-ridden Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua, Mexico for about two weeks to complete the immigrant visa process through the U.S. State Department. Their middle names are being used to protect Estela’s identity.
LIFE OF STRUGGLES
Estela, the youngest of nine children, was 11 when her mother died after a long battle with cancer. She spent the next year living in her family’s two-bedroom home in Guadalajara, Mexico, with five siblings. Her father had moved to Los Angeles years earlier after a pattern of alcohol abuse and domestic violence involving her mother.
“We didn’t have anything to eat. My brothers — they were always doing their own thing, so I was kind of always like, ‘If I don’t work, I don’t eat,’” Estela said after tearfully recounting her mother’s death.
“The boys, they were really bad. They were always out there doing drugs, stealing, doing a lot of bad stuff, really bad stuff,” she said. “I guess my mom protected us from everything from heaven because there were so many things — there were always a lot of guys in our house, a lot of guns.”
Her father and oldest sister, who also lived in Los Angeles, eventually came up with enough money to pay for men to help Estela and two of her sisters cross into the U.S. through Ciudad Juarez, a city that Estela hopes — though reluctantly — to soon return to with 21-year-old Angel to complete the legal permanent resident process.
Under the new program, Estela can apply for a temporary waiver that allows her to remain with her husband and avoid punishment for the time she spent illegally in the U.S. The old system would require her to wait in Mexico until the waiver was approved — a process that could take more than one year, according to the Homeland Security Department. Local immigration attorneys and advocates, however, said they frequently have dealt with cases where families were separated for as long as three years.
“Before, a lot of the people, they knew they were eligible for this waiver, but they were afraid to leave the country because they didn’t know how long this waiver was going to take,” said Alicia Flores, executive director of Oxnard’s La Hermandad Mexicana, a California-based immigrant rights nonprofit.
The opportunity to apply for what is officially known as a “provisional unlawful presence waiver” while remaining in the U.S. will provide more incentive for undocumented immigrants to start working toward legal residency, Flores said.
NO GUARANTEE
The revised policy allows undocumented immigrants to obtain a waiver before traveling to their native country for the visa interview when permanent resident status can be confirmed.
But that doesn’t mean all risk is eliminated, said Flores, who has been working with Estela and Angel on their case.
“When you receive the approval of the waiver, it’s just partial,” Flores said. “There still could be some risk of leaving the country, but it’s minimal not as (much as) the one we’re facing right now.”
That risk stems from a law that delays the legalization process for up to 10 years for undocumented immigrants who lived in the U.S. for an extended period without permission. The waiver eliminates that penalty for qualified individuals whose spouse or parent is a U.S. citizen.
The key for being eligible is that there must be evidence that the American citizen would face “extreme hardship” if their undocumented spouse or child is not allowed to live in the U.S.
“Extreme hardship is not a definable term and elements to establish extreme hardship are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each case,” according to the new rule. While financial struggles and family separation experienced by the U.S. citizen may not solely qualify as extreme hardship, other factors could include health problems and loss of educational or employment opportunities, among many others.
Gabriella Navarro-Busch, a Ventura immigration lawyer, was working with 20 cases eligible for the revised waiver policy just one week after the rule was published, but her appointments quickly filled up through March.
“Instead of waiting in Mexico, they’re waiting here,” Navarro-Busch said. There is still the possibility that a waiver could be denied, but at least the applicants would be in the U.S. with their families, she added.
It is unclear, however, what will happen to people who don’t qualify, Navarro-Busch said.
“Are they put in deportation proceedings?” she asked. “We think that it’s contrary to the president’s policy because he’s actually telling the Department Of Homeland Security, ‘Don’t put people in deportation proceedings if they don’t need to be.’ ”
FEAR OF SEPARATION
Everyone did not make the cut to take advantage of the new waiver, however. People who had a visa appointment scheduled in their home country before the revised process was implemented had to go the traditional route, which requires leaving the U.S.
Flores cited one local case involving a family of four — the mother has been separated from her two children and husband since December. The mother is waiting in Mexico to get her waiver approved, while her husband is working, going to school and struggling to provide for their children, one of which is in poor health, Flores said.
“Thank God it’s this new law because, honestly, just the thought about going back to Mexico for one to six months, I was stressing already,” Estela said. “I got used to here. It’s been half of my life It’s just hard to leave and not to know if you’re going to come back.”
For Estela and Angel, the potential danger and cost of traveling to Ciudad Juarez is worrisome. The young couple depend on Estela’s income now that Angel is back in school preparing for an 18-month radiology technician program that starts in June.
The total cost of Estela’s legal status adjustment is estimated at $3,000, but she said the temporary waiver was a best-case scenario that will help their financial situation by keeping travel costs low, keeping her at work longer and keeping her husband in school.
“If we go out, it’s going to be together and not for a long time — I hope,” she said.