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Rights and Justice

Immigration Reform: Don't Leave Women and Children Behind

When I met Luz at an immigration detention facility in rural Pennsylvania, she was desperate to see her one-year-old son. Luz was about to be deported back to Ecuador with her teenage son, but she didn't want to leave without her baby, who, unlike the rest of the family, was a U.S. citizen.

Luz had last seen her baby a few months earlier when she left him with a friend while she went to pick up her 15-year-old son from a shelter in Arizona. The mother of two and her older son were questioned by Customs and Border Patrol agents as they prepared to board a bus to return home. When the agents discovered that Luz and her son were unauthorized to be in the country, they detained them, and transferred them to Pennsylvania with an order of deportation.

…As a parent and advocate, I continue to be haunted by Luz's story. I cannot forget the desperation in Luz's voice as she worried about what was happening to her baby boy. As a mother of two myself, I could not imagine how this could be happening in the America I know and love. Unfortunately, Luz's story is all too common. In fact, between 2010 and 2012, our country deported more than 200,000 parents of U.S. citizen children. That translates to thousands of broken families and thousands of U.S. citizen children who are forced to grow up without their parents. What I have learned since that fateful day is that many of those parents want nothing more than to be with their children — whether in the U.S. or their home country.

Read the full blog on Huffington Post.

Rights and Justice