If you’ve lived in a country for more than 30 years, you probably consider yourself a citizen. Unfortunately, current laws in the United States doesn’t make that so.
And because of these laws, Jorge Garcia had to say goodbye to his family.
He, his wife Cindy Garcia, his 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son were in tears at Detroit Metropolitan Airport the day he was deported after living in the U.S. for three whole decades.
According to the Detroit Free Press, the 39-year-old landscaper was brought to the U.S. by an undocumented family member when he was just 10-years-old. Since then he married a U.S. citizen and spent more than $125,000 in legal fees and other costs to try and find a legal way to live in the U.S.
He was given an order of removal from immigration courts in 2009 but has received stays of removal under previous administrations. However, he was ordered to return to Mexico in November under the Trump administration even though he does not have a criminal record and pays his taxes.
He was given a deportation extension until Jan. 15 after U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell requested that he be able to spend one more holiday with his family.
“I’m going to be sad because I’m not going to be able to be with them,” Garcia said at a farewell party before his deportation. “It’s going to be kind of hard for me to adjust, too. Not being there with them, helping the kids with school stuff. It’s going to be kind of hard. But it’s something, I guess I got to find a way to adjust.”
Garcia spoke with the Detroit Free Press in February and said he felt “lost” in Mexico without his family.
He may be barred from entering the U.S. for at least 10 years but groups like Michigan United are fighting to get him back.
“It’s like plucking a main artery, like, their lifeline, taking it from them and then just putting it somewhere else,” said Norma Garza Jones, 44, of Detroit, a family friend. “Those that are left behind are left to just try and compensate for that artery that main blood vessel, you know, that’s been pulled from them.”
Deportations have been on the rise in the U.S. since 1986, according to Snopes, and reached their peak during the Obama administration.
PolitiFact reports that fewer people were deported in the fiscal year of 2017 than in 2016, however more people who already lived in the U.S. were deported in 2017 than in 2016 as opposed to individuals arrested by ICE in the interior of the country and individuals apprehended by immigration officials at the border and turned over to ICE for removal.
The number of ICE arrests in the Trump administration has gone up and has risen 30 percent between 2016 and 2017.
You can watch the family’s emotional departure in the video below.
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