The Monster Attacks

Yesterday, I sat in my car waiting to pick up Cairo from school. It had been four days since I'd seen him because I was out of town for work since Monday. I didn't get much sleep the last few nights. Not only was I alone in a hotel all week but we went to court Friday morning in hopes to vacate Joses "conviction", which isn't a conviction under state law but immigration says it is. I envisioned picking up Cairo and being happy to see my changuito and being over whelmingly happy because we were able to vacate the conviction in the morning That's not what played out. I am happy to see my baby but we were not able to vacate the conviction.

I sat in that court room for two hours waiting for Joses name to be called. When they finally did four attorneys stood up. Tim, two attorneys from his firm and Mr. Little B. It all started well, the judge agreed with us and the prosecuting attorney argued gentley. It looked like she was complying with the negotiation she agreed to. I thought we were going to be in the clear and finally Jose would be able to come home. Then all of a sudden the prosecuting attorneys deminor changed, she became animated and began to vigorsly argue. She had realized the judge was in our favor. As our team argued back with valid points she argued irrelevant ones. She became this monster who was refusing to be beat, we would win over her dead body. This went on for quite some time until the judge decided to make his decision. Although he whole heartily agreed with us and wanted to help, our request was DENIED. I was stunned and tears that started to roll when the monster appeared became a steady steam. Jose will not be coming home next week.

Outside the court room Mr. Little B tore into the prosecutor like a lion protecting his pride. I didn't know what was going on since I was talking to Tim but apparently her smug smile and laughing at how she won the case with the other prosecutors made him lose his temper. I spoke with Mr. Little B. later last night, he confirmed what I was seeing from the side lines. It was all about her ego. Because of her ego she threw our agreement out the window. Because of her ego Joses "conviction" was not vacated. Because of her ego Jose is not coming home. What did the state gain from this? Is justice really being served? To who? The cop who arrested Jose? The attorney who told Jose to plead guilty? Or maybe the judge who ordered the probation? Perhaps it's the piece of paper that says probation is not a conviction even though immigration says it is? Because other than that, no one else was involved with the "crime".

Tim seems to think the judge "insinuated" another solution to our problem. He's going to try again within a week or two. I don't know what it involves but to be honest, seeing what happened yesterday has made me lose faith in the justice system and quite frankly in this country. It seems dead set on continuing to torture my family and keeping us apart. It doesn't care that my sons fingers are bleeding because he rips his nails off to deal with the loss of this father. It doesn't care that I haven't slept in almost a year because my husband is locked up some where for something so stupid and minor. It doesn't care that he will forever be barred from coming back to this "wonderful" country. Needless to say, I was happy to see my son again yesterday, but I am completely and utterly devastated on the inside. All I want to do was to hug Jose and sob, but I can't and all I can do is sob silently by myself.

Christmas 2011

This Christmas was spent at my parents house.  It was just the four of us, Mom, Dad, Cairo and myself.  I baked a ham, we had some salads for sides and we watched holiday movies and cartoons.  Cairo and I spent the night so we could all keep each other company.  It was a very low key holiday this year.  We didn't make tamales and we didn't play games.  We didn't dress up or play holiday music.  I'm surprised how hard it was on me.  Thanksgiving was also low key but my mind was kept off of things...Christmas, on the other hand, was a bit harder to deal with, maybe because it's been almost 9 months since he's been gone.  Even when Jose and I were separated, we found ourselves together for Christmas.  This is the first and hopefully last Christmas we spend apart.

Cairo and I drove out to see him on Christmas morning.  I didn't know if they were going to allow visitations, but we drove out anyway.  I was thankful to see that they did and we were in the first group.  It was great seeing his smiling face.  I wanted to cry, having to say Feliz Navidad through a video screen.  Cairo was happy to see his dad but he got very upset after a while.  It was to be expected.  We have court coming up soon after the new year.  I'm hoping we'll have good news then.

Jose seems to be in better spirits.  He's sounding more calm and is ready for what ever may come our way.  I'm off this week so I'm enjoying hanging out with Cairo and watching him play and be a kid.  I just wish Jose can see him.  Cairo has grown so much and is such a funny little guy.  Hopefully next year will be a much better one filled with blessings.  

6 months & counting

Today marks 6 months since Jose was arrested.  Since then so many things have happened.   Weeks after Jose was taken by ICE Governor Quinn backed out of S-Comm and recently the Cook County Sheriff also backed away from the horrible program that does little to keep communities safe.  Both decisions were too late for Jose but will, thankfully, stop other families from being separated.

As I mentioned in my previous post I sent a request to the ICE director here to get permission to marry Jose.  I hope this time it moves much faster.  I'm looking forward to being able to be in my Gordos arms even if just for a moment.  Sadly this will be a treat we will not be able to share with Cairo since he is not "needed" for the ceremony.  I'm going to try and argue him in but we'll see.  I've sent a letter to States Attorney Alvarez in hopes she will help us some how with Jose's old case.  I've decided to send that letter to Senator Durbin and the Governor.  As my friend said "what's the worse that can happen?". She's right the worst part is already here, Jose is gone and may never be able to come back.

Cairo and I are both in therapy now.  I've only been going for a couple of weeks so far.  Cairo has been going for about two months now.  He's become much more vocal about his feelings.  He's made very strong statements about how he's interpreting what is going on.  It's a good thing though because he's letting it out rather than keeping it all in.  It's just very heart breaking.

I've made an effort to be home on the weekends rather than spend the entire weekend at my parents house.  I've actually enjoyed it.  We get to accomplish alot more things at home and I noticed I'm less on edge.  I love my family but sometimes some of them are not very supportive.  Plus I already see some of them 5 times a week, that's more than enough.


I'm also looking for a second job.  Between our super basic needs, life and all the attorney fees I'm facing one of several things can happen.  The worse is that I will be out thousands of dollars and no attorneys to finish either of Jose's cases.  I'm getting really frustrated.  You'd think with the holidays coming up there would be a lot of seasonal hiring.  I feel like such a jerk.  So many people are currently unemployed and I'm over here hoping to get a second job.  I just hope I can get a second job before time and the little money I have left runs out.

It's like my dad's dead

I recently wrote our states attorney for help with Jose's case.  I included how we met, why we divorced and the kind of family we are today.  I also added how this whole situation is affecting Cairo. The therapy, nail tearing, binge eating, crying, angry outbursts and the constant questions about his return...

"When is my daddy coming home?"

"Why is it taking so long?"

"I can't wait anymore, when will he be here?"

"Why won't the police let him go?"

"Is my papi a bad person?"

The day before I sent the letter out I decided to add his most recent statement to the letter.  I felt that it was appropriate.  We were on our way home and it was getting dark outside. We were listening to music, it was a pretty quite drive. Then Cairo blurted out "Mom, It's like my dad's dead, but he's not because I talk to him on the phone".  He hit the nail on the head.  I feel the same way but never vocalized it. I never imagined that he, at 6 years old, would associate his dad being in jail with him being dead. I wanted to break down and cry.  It comes to show that just because kids are quiet at times, it doesn't mean those gears are not furiously turning. It also shows that in the end, all this immigration shit, kids are the ones who ultimately suffer the most.

5 Months

Yesterday marked month number 5.  Where we are now really isn't that much better off than where we were last month.  We still have Mr. Little B helping us with Jose's immigration case and now we have Mr. L who is working on the rest for Mr. Big B.

When Jose was arrested in was the end of Spring and it was still very chilly outside, cold enough that we needed to keep the heat on in our newly purchased home. It is now chilly once again.  Jose has missed Summer, my birthday, Cairo's birthday, my sister-in-laws birthday and all the activities we were supposed to do this summer like camping, block parties and grilling outside.  Not a day, event or moment went by where I didn't wish he was there to share it with.  I miss him very much and our son misses him so much more than that.  Not even a 6 year old child's mind can over come the empty space.  Sure he has fun but while he's riding his bike or playing or eating cake or ice cream he remembers and sadly says "I miss my papi".  Just this morning on the way to school he asked "Why is it taking so long for papi to come home?" "Will they ever let him go?"  "I hope I'm not a grown up when he comes home".  It breaks my heart to hear my son so concerned about his father, he wants to be with his dad and there is nothing I can do about it but pray and wait.

Cairo has been in therapy for almost two months now and I will be starting next week.  I wasn't planning on seeing anyone, I kept pushing it off thinking "Jose is going to be home soon and it's all going to be better" but as day after day, week after week, month after month goes by I find myself getting weaker and weaker.  I hope and pray that he will be home and we can be a family again but I can't see the end of the tunnel and it's killing me on the inside.  Even as I write this I have this sinking feeling in my stomach and I'm trying to hold back tears.  Some days I feel like I am in denial, this didn't happen he'll walk in the door any minute.  Any minute he's going to call me at 1 O'Clock like he always does....then nothing.  The door never opens and the phone never rings and it all comes back in a horrible wave of emotion.  Every day I read the updates, the articles describing the current immigration changes, trying to read into them to see if there is hope for my Gordo, and there are none.  It's so unfair.  Jose is not a bad person, he just made mistakes and over came them. 

It's hard to ask for help

I just started Joses petition yesterday and I've got printed versions to ask people if they can sign it.  I thought it would be a good way to get the online peeps to sign and the too tech savvy to sign it.  The first person I asked to sign the paper petition was one of my mom's neighbors, it was not difficult to ask her, she willfully accepted and even spoke well of Jose.  Tonight a few of us went to another one of my mom's neighbors house for a Tupperware party thing (and yes, it was a real Tupperware party not an "alternative" Tupperware party), there were plenty of would be signers of the petition.  I was able to ask the women I knew to sign it and they did, I could not, on the other hand, ask the other women or the men to sign.  The hostess and my sister-in-law asked for me, I just broke down in tears.  I could not bring myself to vocalize the purpose of the petition.  This is an emotional hurdle I just can't get passed. Talking to my sister-in-law earlier I thought it was my insecurities, el que diran? (what will they say?) syndrome.  The more I think about it now, it's not so much el que diran, it's the fact that I feel extremely vulnerable, I feel weak.  I never really learned how to ask for help when I need it, my family can tell you that.  It was hard enough to open up to close friends about this but now to tell people that do not know me or Jose or my family very well and to ask them to sign something for us, it's hard. I'm going to do my best to get passed it, it's one more hurdle I need to get over and it's not the biggest considering everything else that's going on.  I've said this before and I will say it again, I am very humbled and touched by the generosity and support we have gotten so far.  Thank you to all of you, I hope to be able to return the favor in some way.

Call Nights

Call nights are a huge deal now.  We can't afford Jose calling home every night so he calls about 1-2 times a week.  When he was at a county prison for a month it cost about $120 for him to call my cell phone and a service provided by the correctional facility.

For those who don't know, you can't receive collect calls on cell phones.  You have to prepay to get calls through and the fees are huge!  You basically open an account where you deposit money.  There is a flat fee to deposit money to the account, then there is a fee to connect the call then there is a per minute fee and a monthly fee if you have the service for longer than a month.  If you add all that up it can be *very* costly to talk to your loved one in prison.  The more you look at this the more you realize how much of a rip off this is.  If you think about it,  you won't find rich people in prisons,  people who can afford to pay all those fees just to communicate with loved ones.  The majority are lower income and probably can't afford to make those calls or set up those accounts.  The system is set up to alienate the inmates from their families as much as possible, I can't help but wonder why?

We can't afford for Jose to call home very often so we have call nights, once Jose calls home we set a date for the next time he's going to call.  They are usually 3-5 days apart depending on what is going on.  I've set up a land line at home, the cheapest I could find, just so that he can call home and I wouldn't have to pay to deposit money into an account every time the phone account ran low.  Do you know it's like to not speak to your husband or wife for 3-5 days not knowing how they are?  For 3-5 days I don't know if he's ok, hurt or sick.  I can only pray that he is ok and that God is looking out for him.  I feel like a zombie at work, my mind wonders, I'm unfocused and find myself sad and crying through out the day.

As call day keeps getting closer and closer I hope and pray that he's change his mind and will call sooner than planned.  I toss and turn every night, I still wake up a few times during the night.  I couldn't sleep or eat the first month he was away.  When that night finally arrives every minute that passes is an eternity.  I go through my routine with my son and I just look at the clock, I watch every single minute pass and my stomach sinks deeper and deeper as the phone refuses to ring.  I get to the point that I check the phone for a dial tone and I call it with my cell just to make sure it still works.  When the phone finally rings my heart jumps and this feeling of relief comes over me when I hear the automatic message saying it's him calling.  I have to fight the tears when I am finally able to say "Hi Gordo!" and I can hear his voice on the other end.  You can hear the sadness mixed with the relief and joy to hear our voices when he speaks.  Tomorrow is call night, and I am a mess.

Really Emotional Reading

I recently read the blog written by Emily Guzman.  Their families experience left me in tears, not only because it brought out the emotions from what we are going through but because another family suffered great pain as a result of the current immigration policy.

Emily and Pedros story has given me hope and inspiration.

Jose has been in an immigration prison for almost three weeks now.  He still does not have a court date.  I have not seen him in over a month, Cairo has not seen him since April 5, 2011.  I am very grateful that he's at least still in Illinois but the fact that he is 6 hrs away makes it financially impossible for me to visit him any time soon, not to mention that I don't have any vacation time from work to take.  Visitations are on Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays for only a few hours in the day and afternoons.