Deporting parents: Loophole limbo

Nidia Vallecillo calls her unexpected reprieve from deportation a "miracle." And her baby, Jared, is the reason for it. Earlier this month, immigration agents escorted Vallecillo and her baby from Minnesota to the Miami airport -- and then back to Minnesota on the same day. It turned out that Jared did not have a U.S. passport -- a new travel requirement -- so he couldn't board the plane for the final leg of the deportation to his mother's home country of Nicaragua.

Overnight, Vallecillo went from being a prisoner in an Elk River jail to a mother with an ankle monitor at a comfortable home in Brooklyn Center. The paperwork glitch surprised immigration officials and Vallecillo, who is among the growing number of parents facing deportation who must grapple with the fate of their children.

"I couldn't believe I was home!" said Vallecillo.

"I felt like the happiest mother in the world."

Immigration officials said that children frequently are deported with their parents but rarely fly right back.

"This is the first thing I've heard of like this in my 10 years of working in immigration law," added Greg Palmore, a spokesman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The case demonstrates the complexities that arise as more and more children of immigrants -- some born here, others brought over the border by parents -- are caught up in the crackdown on illegal immigration.

Customs has cranked up its efforts to locate the more than 600,000 illegal immigrants across the country who failed to show up for deportation hearings. Vallecillo is among 742 arrested by the agency's Bloomington office over the past year, said customs spokesman Tim Counts. Immigration officials allow people being deported to take their children to their homelands and arrange their travel documents in advance of the trip.

That's typically the end of the story.

Vallecillo, 37, had been living illegally in the United States for more than two years. She said she worked temporary jobs to help support her family, and she felt like she was finally starting to make a good living.

But in August 2005, an immigration judge had ordered Vallecillo deported. But like many immigrants facing such orders, she stayed with her family.

When one of ICE's "fugitive operations teams" showed up on Vallecillo's doorstep last month, her sister-in-law took in Jared while Vallecillo awaited deportation in jail.

On Oct. 11, without advance notice, Vallecillo was taken to the airport to be flown back to Nicaragua. When the sister-in-law arrived at the airport with Jared, officials unlocked Vallecillo's handcuffs so she could hold her baby. Her heart began to race.

"They were not going to separate us," she said.

Vallecillo said the baby, apparently hungry or tired or both, was fussy at first but eventually fell asleep on the plane.

After landing in Miami, airline officials told customs agents they would not allow the baby, a U.S. citizen, to travel further without a passport. Unbeknown to ICE, the Nicaraguan Consulate had tightened its requirements for entry. The agents called the consulate in Miami to try to arrange for temporary papers, but before that could be done, Vallecillo said, the consulate closed and the plane took off.

Vallecillo believes customs agents could see the stress the baby had already been through and, rather than spend the night in Miami, put everybody on a plane back to the Twin Cities. They arrived after midnight.

And instead of sending Vallecillo back to jail, they fitted her with an ankle monitor. The monitors typically are given to individuals who do not pose a security risk to the community, said Counts, or who have compelling personal reasons for not being jailed.

And so Vallecillo, who less than 24 hours before had been weeping at the prospects of never seeing family and friends in Minnesota again, was suddenly sleeping in her own bed.

"I was so overwhelmed, I kept waking up," she said.

Immigration does not keep records of how many children are deported along with their parents, said Counts. But published reports indicate there are up to 3 million American children with at least one parent who is living in the country illegally.

Palmore said that immigration will continue to develop its case to deport Vallecillo.

Vallecillo is hoping for another miracle.

"My hope is they give me a chance to work," said Vallecillo. "I am a fighter -- a fighter for the well-being for my family."

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