So while still in the detention center, Alvarez's attorney sought to vacate his guilty plea on the grounds that he had not been informed, as required by law, of the consequences of his plea. Pierce County deputy prosecuting attorney Stephen Trinen fought the motion, arguing that the consequences were contained in the paperwork. "It's a technical, legal issue at this point," says Trinen, who also hinted at other things on Alvarez's record. When he was 18, he was convicted of vehicle prowl and possession of stolen property. A Pierce County Superior Court judge let the 2001 guilty plea stand.
"Are you kidding me?" his wife, Leah Alvarez, says after the verdict. "It just doesn't make any sense." For that matter, she has a hard time making sense of her husband's entire predicament. "He can't be deported. He has a home, a wife and kids here. Hel-lo."
Kevin P. Casey
Charlotte Gonzalez's husband, Julio Gonzalez, is in the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma because his citizenship is undocumented. He was born in Mexico to an American mother.
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Byron Alvarez is still eligible to apply to have the crime expunged from his record in 2008. But if he were to wait for that, he would have to spend two more years in the detention center. By late last month, he had spent seven months there already, during which time he had been unable to hold his baby while she grew from a 1-year-old into a 2-year-old. He decided to "voluntarily" depart.
Although he will be escorted out of the country by ICE officials, his wife is allowed to travel to Guatemala with him. She says she will only stay for a couple of weeks. She has a job here at a staffing agency. For Byron, having his wife and children move to Guatemala seems untenable given the poorer conditions of life there. "That's the whole reason we came here," he says.
But how Leah will cope without him is an open question. In an age when the prevailing political sentiment endorses self- reliance, the government is removing a working parent that kept a family functioning. Already, Leah is feeling the strain. "Not only do I have to take on the role of single mother, but I have the role of managing the apartments," she says. In addition to his warehouse job, Byron served as the manager of their apartment building. The apartment- manager job gives Leah free rent. "Otherwise, we'd be screwed."
In a down-at-the-heels apartment complex in Kent, Charlotte Gonzalez and the three children that live with her are also feeling the strain of losing a working parent to the detention center. "The phone bills are over there and I'm scared to open them," she says, pointing to a table jammed between the small living room and even smaller kitchen. She's not sure she can pay the light bill, either. Her 19-year-old daughter, Desiree, wanders in with an almost-empty shampoo bottle and asks if there is more. "Mix it with a little water," Charlotte says. "I can't buy no more."
Charlotte and Julio did not have perfect lives and a perfect marriage. He was a gangbanger when he was a teen, according to Charlotte. Gonzalez admits he got into trouble when his mother tended bar at night. While still an unruly young man, he would walk by Charlotte's house in Bell Gardens, Calif. They noticed each other. Eventually, they would sit on her porch talking through the night. While they had a strong connection, their subsequent married life was dragged down by drugs, drinking, and lost jobs.
Four years ago, Gonzalez finally listened to a brother who lived up here and belonged to a church that ran a men's home for people looking to change their lives. Gonzalez spent a year there. Charlotte and the rest of the family followed. "We've been serving God ever since," she says.
"We were doing OK," Julio says, "paying our bills." He was well regarded at the railroad. Says his supervisor there, Glenn Strieker, when I call him: "I would put him back to work on Monday."
But there was the rainy night last February when Gonzalez was taken away from the airport. Charlotte and their son, weak from the coma, waited for hours to be picked up. The 24-year-old Julio, now recuperating at his parents' apartment, still hasn't seen his father. While Julio can seem cavalier, joking that now he can call immigration if his dad messes with him, he turns serious to explain why he hasn't visited the detention center. "When I see Dad, I want to hug him and say, 'Dad, I love you,' without speaking to him through an artificial thing," he says of the glass partition.
And so he waits. The whole family waits to see if the government will let his father out. Julio Gonzalez's next court hearing is May 18.
nshapiro@seattleweekly.com
