They Could Be Citizens and They Might Be Deported

In a courtroom behind a locked door, Julio Gonzalez sits on a bench waiting to hear whether he will be allowed to stay in the country where he has lived for nearly half a century. He's wearing a blue jumpsuit provided by the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, the privately run federal holding facility for immigrants the government wants to deport. The proceedings of the U.S. Immigration Court take place inside the detention center.

A courtroom officer calls for Gonzalez by the number he has been assigned: "Nine-zero-eight, your honor." He steps forward, a graying, plump 47-year-old with a mustache and glasses, and passes his wife, Charlotte, a woman with long, dark hair sitting quietly on a bench across the aisle. He shrugs at her with his eyes, the kind of look you give to someone who has shared your life for no small amount of time.

Julio and Charlotte Gonzalez, whose marriage certificate was signed 21 years ago at the Precious Memories chapel in Huntington Park, Calif., are up against a challenge of Kafkaesque proportions. Julio's late mother was an American citizen, according to the Gonzalezes and a copy of a birth certificate documenting the arrival of baby Raquel Sandoval in Santa Fe, N.M., on April 4, 1934. Her parents were born in New Mexico, Julio says. Julio's father was a legal resident who worked at a chroming factory for 25 years in Arizona, where he died. Julio's wife is an American citizen, with a California birth certificate to prove it. Julio and Charlotte have four children, ranging in age from 24 to 16, all born in the U.S.

Julio has lived in this country since he was a baby, he says. Before he was born, however, his mother spent some time in Mexico, where she delivered Julio, one of her 10 children, most of whom were born in the U.S. She returned to this country in time to give Julio memories of waking up from naps and being fed orange juice and peanut butter crackers in a Los Angeles kindergarten.

But to immigration officials, his Mexican birth is what matters. One rainy day in early February, Julio drove to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to pick up his wife and oldest son, also named Julio. A month earlier, the younger Julio, who lived in Idaho, had fallen into a coma, the result of a staph infection. Charlotte was bringing him home.

Somehow, Julio veered into the wrong place at the airport and was stopped by a security officer, who discovered through a background check that Julio had a warrant out for his arrest due to driving with a suspended license. He was taken to the Kent City Jail. "An immigration officer was right there," Julio recalls. "He asked me where I was born. I said Mexico."

The next thing Julio knew, he was on his way to the detention center in Tacoma.

Charlotte Gonzalez and her sons, Steven (left) and Julio.

Kevin P. Casey

Nationwide, the detention population has been booming in response to a backlash against illegal immigration that began in the mid-1990s and has grown ever more intense since 9/11. In 1994, the federal government detained 7,444 immigrants on any given day, according to Detention Watch Network, a D.C.-based group that advocates for detainees. The government today has bed space to detain 22,000 immigrants, and those available beds tend to be used. President George W. Bush's fiscal year 2007 budget allocates money for an additional 6,700 beds, which would make the increase since 1994 almost fourfold. The number of removals every year from the U.S.—whether formal or "voluntary"—is even greater. In 2004, they totaled 1,238,319, according to the Office of Immigration Statistics.

The intense debate over immigration now playing out in Congress, provoking unprecedented demonstrations by immigrants in Seattle and across the country, is over proposals to further increase the number of people detained and deported. The House passed a measure that would criminalize all illegal immigrants. Legislation proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., which offers a chance at citizenship for many of the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants believed to be here, was supposed to be a compromise but nevertheless contains toughened enforcement provisions that would allow indefinite detention and create new grounds for deportation. It was attacked for being too lenient. Said U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., author of the stricter House bill: "This is a slap in the face to those who are following the law and taking the right steps to enter this country." Such a statement implicitly references people most of us undoubtedly have in mind when we think of immigrants that face, or should face, deportation: lawbreakers who recently snuck across the border.

But many immigrants at risk for deportation are deeply integrated into American life after numerous years here. They are surrounded by American citizens, who may be their spouses, children, parents, brothers, sisters, or, as in the case of Julio Gonzalez, all of the above. They may not even have come here illegally.

The Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma houses some 525 detainees and is to be expanded to accommodate 800.

Nina Shapiro

"My typical day is having someone call me on the phone in disbelief that this could be happening to them," says Aarti Shahani, co-founder of Families for Freedom, a New York–based organization supporting families torn apart by immigration laws. When an immigrant—legal or not—is convicted of what is known in immigration law as an "aggravated felony," that person is subject to mandatory detention and has little recourse to deportation. It used to be that only severe crimes like murder and rape constituted aggravated felonies. But in 1996, Congress expanded the aggravated felony category to include a laundry list of crimes, including, paradoxically, certain misdemeanors like assault. Says Shahani, "I see people go into court all the time and say, 'But your honor, I have a 3-year-old, I have a 7-year-old.' The judge will consistently say, 'Listen, it's not in my hands. Go tell Congress to change the laws.'"