In the midst of the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign, one long-term Harrisonburg resident is hopeful she can continue building a life for her family in the United States. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
[Oneyda speaking in Spanish]
Oneyda is 36 years old and has four children, ages two to 19. In several ways, she's among the majority of the approximately 251,000 unauthorized immigrants who live in Virginia, according to the Migration Policy Institute. She's originally from the Central American country of Honduras. She's been here for over a decade, and she's employed.
I spoke with Oneyda about her immigration case with the help of translator Maressa Cortes, whose voice you will hear interpreting Oneyda's words into English. WMRA agreed to withhold Oneyda's last name due to her legal status.
[Oneyda speaking in Spanish]
ONEYDA, TRANSLATED BY MARESSA CORTES: I like going to church, I like playing with my children … teaching them, making sure they're keeping up with their studies. … I work at the George's, and my partner works at a restaurant.
George's is one of several poultry plants in the valley – part of the robust poultry and egg industry, Virginia's flagship agricultural commodities. That industry is centered in Rockingham and Augusta counties and employs a large number of immigrants.
I asked Oneyda why she decided to leave Honduras. She had two children at the time, who were then five and seven years old.
ONEYDA, TRANSLATED BY CORTES: The first issue is crime. There's a lot of crime in the streets, and the second reason being that there's a lot of poverty. … One of the hardest things was having to leave my family behind, but the reason that I decided to go ahead and make the journey here is because I was a single mother, and it worried me that my children wouldn't be able to have a good life, and so I gave it my best shot and moved to the United States.
The United Nations reports that 64% of Honduras' population lives below the poverty level. In 2014, the year Oneyda left, the U.S. State Department reported the homicide rate there was between 65 and 72 murders per 100,000 persons. Today, it's down to 31. America's is just under seven.
ONEYDA, TRANSLATED BY CORTES: After we had done the whole trajectory of our trip, we crossed the river, and from there, immigration picked us up.
After spending two days in a detention center, they were released to a church. Oneyda's brother, who was already established in Harrisonburg, arranged for her to join him.
ONEYDA, TRANSLATED BY CORTES: The problem started when – I wasn't sure if it was my brother or if it was the officer who was taking my information, but the incorrect letter of my apartment was written down, and so I didn't receive notification of a court date that I had in 2017. Later on when I went to court in Fairfax, I was informed that there was a deportation order for me, which I was very surprised by, because I made sure to attend each of my appointments.
I spoke with Oneyda's attorney, Steven Smith, on the drive back from one of her recent immigration appointments in Richmond. She currently has to report in person once every three months, at the office of an ICE contractor called BI Incorporated. They also call her once a month, and she has to wear a wrist monitor.
Smith said that when Oneyda missed the first court appearance that she was unaware of, the judge ordered her removed. Because of that –
[highway sounds]
STEVEN SMITH: Oneyda never had a chance to properly file her asylum application, to argue her fear of return in front of an immigration judge.
They recently asked the courts to reopen her case, with the goal of filing a new application – for one of the less common pathways for someone to gain lawful status. It's called a "cancellation of removal for certain nonpermanent residents." An immigration judge can grant this status if a person has been in the U.S. continuously for at least 10 years, has not committed any crimes, and can prove that their deportation would cause "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" to their spouse, parent, or child – who must themselves be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. That's a high threshold of hardship. Smith explained that the relative would have to experience profound, cumulative harm – economically, physically, and emotionally – if the person applying for this status was deported. This is often applied in cases where the applicant is a caretaker to a close relative with complex medical needs.
WMRA confirmed that Oneyda has no criminal record in Virginia, Texas, or the federal court system. But an immigration judge still has to find that her situation meets that high bar of hardship. It's not enough that her two youngest – both American citizens – are only six and two years old.
SMITH: She's at a point now where she's very vulnerable, in terms of what could happen to her at her … next ICE check-in.
ONEYDA, TRANSLATED BY CORTES: I have a lot of fear because I have children, and my youngest daughter is two years old, and my oldest son, who is 19, has a lot of medical issues that he needs a lot of help with, so I really need to be there for them.
Oneyda said the ICE agents have offered her voluntary self-deportation – where the Department of Homeland Security pays for someone to leave on their own accord. But she wants to pursue lawful status here.
ONEYDA, TRANSLATED BY CORTES: I have a lot of faith in God, and I have a lot of faith in my lawyer. … There are laws here, and we have to respect the laws. I imagine, though, that many people like myself are hardworking people who don't cause problems. I really go from work to home to church to home. We are also supporting the American economy, because even though everything is expensive, we still buy things at the grocery store. Everybody thinks differently, and I understand that maybe they need to have a harder hand, but I hope that they're able to see that some people are very hardworking and don't cause problems. … Some people really do have a need to be in this country, and I hope that God touches the hearts of people so that they're able to see that.
In the meantime, she waits for her monthly call with ICE, to see if anything has changed.
