Immigration has a long -term impact on CA families

By a carine escalatote, special for Calmatters

This comment was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

One in 10 children in California There is at least one immigrant parentS I was one of these children.

I grew up in the home shaped by both hope and uncertain. My father lived all his life without documents until the day he went.

He wanted a better life for us, but at that time there was no viable legal path to obtain legal status. Although as an adult and legal professional, I became acquainted with the laws of immigration and had access to legal networks and resources, my father did not have the same opportunities as others.

At the beginning of 2000, my father was arrested for a violation of movement, which eventually led to his work of immigration, a process that he was afraid to pursue his own conditions. In 2007, when I was a college student, my father’s case led to a voluntary departure, separating it from our familyS

The year he was gone, he felt endless. In the end, my father decided to return to the United States without proper permission. Until I justified his decision, I was relieved to have those in the last few years with him. I often think about how we may have missed these memories, if he had chosen to obey the law by protecting it from the United States, the joy of being together exceeded legal and emotional complications.

I know it’s Bitter reality for so many families in California forced to make an impossible choice.

This said that, growing up with the constant fear of deporting my father, I was weighed heavily on me. Every time immigration policies change or heard a Broadcasting news of attacksI was terrible. Latin American media networks often intensified the rhetoric of fear, threatening to feel even more immediate. I was scared every date of the Immigration Court: Will my father come home? Would we lose it forever in a country that had not seen in decades?

These experiences formed my perspective, especially at the beginning of my career, when I worked as a parallel, supporting the survivors of domestic violence with restrictive orders, custody and immigration issues. I saw the same, familiar patterns of fear and trauma in the families I worked with. The survivors caught the threat of deporting the summit of the violence they had endured.

Safety planning for these survivors was incredibly complicated; The threats extended beyond the individual for their children, who – like me – lived in a constant fear of losing a parent. I have talked to survivors several times, whose partner has threatened to call immigration authorities to report their illegal status. With their status armed against them, the survivors were forced to choose between permanent abuse or facing deportation and to be separated from their families.

This feeling of fear and the deep impact of delusional immigration policies were tragically emphasized in the recent history of An 11-year-old girl in TexasS She was ruthlessly harassed by classmates who threatened that her parents had been deported. Unable to deal with the emotional road fee, she took her life.

Its history emphasizes the dangerous, potentially life -threatening effects of ignition rhetoric around immigration. Those children, who already carry the weight to be part of the immigrant families, are further traumatized by the hatred and fear that surround them. This is the kind of emotional damage with which I grew up, and this is something I continue to see in my work with families facing deportation.

Ethical implementation of immigration laws requires a more in -depth conversation about their influence on families, especially for children. Ther Trauma caused by family separation goes far beyond the moment. This affects how children grow, how they look at them and how they interact with the world around them. The emotional features are retained, shaping entire generations.

As much as my father wants to be here, I am relieved that he does not live in today’s political climate. Even with my professional expertise, I could not navigate my father successfully. His illegal return to the United States meant that he could never pursue legal status.

The misunderstanding and misinformation of the complexity of immigration law leads many to criticize and consider an inspection of our undocumented population without understanding its devastating effects.

The reality for unspecified families today is even more difficult and heartbreaking than 20 years ago. For the survivors of domestic violence and trafficking in human beings, the fear of deportation combines the trauma they and their family experience.

But local communities can make a change by organizing in support of their undocumented neighbors. This begins with education to counteract negative assumptions and judgments. Communities must take account of how their actions contribute to harmful rhetoric (and behavior), which strongly influences vulnerable children. In addition, by engaging local representatives, we can insist on policies that give priority to humane treatment and acknowledge the pernicious effects on children of undocumented immigrants.

Perhaps first, we can all strive for more compassion and understanding in the face of the Draconian reforms that undermine our collective empathy and essential humanity.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.