U.S. service member’s mother was deported. Salud Carbajal offers bill to prevent that
A family whose matriarch was deported to Mexico during the Trump Administration joined Central Coast Congressman Salud Carbajal Tuesday for an emotional news conference announcing a bill to grant residency to parents of U.S. service members.
Promoting his bill introduced Monday, called the Protect Patriot Parents Act, Carbajal on Tuesday said in a Zoom conference that the parents of U.S. citizens who honorably serve their country should be granted permanent residency.
The lawmaker had previously introduced the bill in 2019, but was unsuccessful. He said that the new Biden Administration and a Democratic-controlled Congress gives him confidence that the new bill — which includes a “welcome home” clause that would grant temporary residency to immigrants during case proceedings — will receive majority support.
“It’s no secret that for the last four years immigrants have been under attack,” said Carbajal, who was a co-sponsor of the Keep Families Together Act and criticized the previous administration’s separation of immigrant families after visiting U.S. detention centers. “The good news is there’s a new administration.”
Carbajal, a former U.S. Marine, said he was inspired by the ongoing struggles of a Goleta family whose matriarch was deported to Mexico after living in the U.S. for 30 years.
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Caesar Flores, son of Juana Flores, said he hasn’t seen his mother in over two years after she left the country to visit her ailing mother in Mexico and was blocked from re-entry.
Caesar Flores, who became a first-time father during the family’s ensuing two-year legal struggle, said Tuesday that he has little hope of seeing his mother before his upcoming deployment to war-torn Turkey in February.
“It’s been heartbreaking to not be able to have (his newborn daughter) spend quality time with her grandma,” Caesar Flores said. “Family is everything to us.”
Juana Flores, 57, entered the U.S. from Mexico without a visa in 1988, two years after President Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act granting residency status to illegal immigrants.
She settled in Goleta, where she and her husband Andres Flores, a permanent resident since 2009 and U.S. citizen since 2015, bought a home and raised a family of 10 children and 18 grandchildren. Juana Flores has no criminal record and before her deportation was the primary caregiver for an adult son with medical issues.
Juana attended the Zoom conference Tuesday from Mexico. She was joined by her legal team, which includes retired Santa Barbara County judges Frank Ochoa and George Eskin.
She said that Mexico is not the same country she left 30 years ago. It’s far more dangerous. And she’s nearly alone, she said.
“It was very diffficult after spending so many years in California and seeing my children grow there,” Juana said through an interpreter. “It’s not the same as having your nuclear family with you. .... I don’t have friends. I only have people that I kind of know.”
“We know that this family is suffering, and it’s suffering on a daily basis,” Ochoa said.
Though there has not yet been discussion of a hearing date, if passed by the House and Senate, Carbajal said the Protect Patriot Parents Act will restore lawful residency status to Juana flores and to thousands of other immigrants who have a son, daughter or other family member serving in the U.S. Armed Services.
The law, if passed, would include parents of U.S. citizens of current federal military service members as well as veterans who were discharged honorably.
“The Flores family deserves our respect for their sacrifice, not deportation,” Carbajal said. “As an immigrant and a veteran myself, I’m proud to reintroduce the Protect Patriot Parents Act so the Flores family and others like them can finally be reunited.”
Carbajal represents California’s 24th Congressional District, which encompasses San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties as well as a portion of northern Ventura County.
