Sorry

I am Priscilla, an American citizen with immigrant parents, remembering from my childhood to the current age that I am now, together with my parents we have achieved a lot over the course of these years. My parents came to the U.S. for a better future. First came my dad and then my mom and I was born a year after their arrival. When I was 12 years old I never thought about experiencing a very rough situation that would leave me downhearted. 

On October 31, 2019, at around 6:30 a.m. my dad and uncle were on their way to work when they suddenly got detained. The day before this whole incident happened everything was going good. We were happy doing our day to day activities. I remember going to school that day and my mom staying with my siblings. The next day my dad and uncle got ready for work. They said goodbye and as we always say “te veo al rato” or “ay nos vemos” they left. A couple minutes later my mom then got a call from my dad’s coworker saying that ICE took him and her brother (my uncle). Those words left my mom in shock and very worried. Hearing that made me feel like they broke a big piece of me. The goodbye that they said the “te veo al rato” were the last words I heard from them that day. I never thought that would be the last day I would see my uncle in person. This whole situation was very unexpected and it was suspicious that it had happened on October 31st. Later that day ICE took my dad and uncle somewhere in a building that’s in Fort Myers. Later they got transported to Miami on a bus. They took his fingerprints and took note of almost every single detail of each of them.

When he arrived at Pompano Beach, Miami where he was put in a detention center. He shared a room with three other people and so did my uncle. My dad had limited calls so he would call my mom twice a day and each call would be one minute to three minutes maximum.  People from my church would go and visit him at the detention and they would tell my mom how he was doing. My mom would let me know who was going to visit him and I would ask her permission to go with them but she was very worried that it would affect my mental health. She thought that by going it would disturb me to see the place where they had put my dad in. This broke my heart knowing that I couldn’t go to see him again. I missed him very much. We would always pray every night hoping that God would do a miracle. I remember making two drawings for him to remind him that we were still together as a family and that I loved him no matter what. There wasn’t a day that would go by without thinking about my dad and uncle. I felt sad and lonely everyday even though my mom was with us but it just wasn’t the same. There were times that we would cry due to my dad’s absence. I always look up to him because he is my greatest inspiration. I missed him very much

 During this time things got very serious because my mom doesn’t work and as a pre-teen I wouldn’t think about household expenses. All I knew was that my dad’s boss was helping us out and other kind-hearted people were too. We put our trust in God because we know that with him all things are possible. I felt hopeless thinking that they wouldn’t let them stay in the U.S. Everyday I felt empty and unprotected but my mom would tell me that God is always with us through the good and bad and that he is our guardian. We would keep praying and put our faith in him because he is our only hope. We wouldn’t go out much due to the situation we were in, but we would go to church. It felt very different knowing that the biggest role of our family wasn’t there with us. Everyday I would miss them more and more with the fear of not seeing them again. I was aware of this happening to anyone but I never expected myself to be going through this situation with my family. 

They stayed in detention for 3 weeks. ICE then told him that he was free to go and that we had to pay his bail of $12,500 while my uncle was told to sign papers not knowing that he was signing up for his own deportation. They just told him to sign a couple papers and didn’t tell him  what it was for (according to my mom). He tells us that on his way to get deported he got taken on a bus where you couldn’t see anything outside from the inside. It was sad to know that my uncle wouldn’t be with us anymore even though he would be reuniting with my grandparents and his siblings, but we were happy to see my dad back with us again. When my dad came back he told us there was a mother on the bus on their way to Miami crying because she had left behind two daughters. He also told us that when he was in detention he heard that many people were being deported and that made me sad because I know they had left behind a family somewhere here in Florida and not by his own choice but by what the officers had to say. Even though a part of me went back to Mexico a big part came back to me and that’s what mattered to me the most. I am very grateful to God that until today my dad is with us and now with a case for residence. This whole situation has kept me on alert because you never know what will happen next. You may see your close friends and family today, but no one knows if you’ll ever see them again tomorrow.