romeo and julie

Romeo  and Julie

My con tact with this family has been intermittent.  I first heard of Julie when I was talking with her brother and learned that his 17 year old sister was in the process of crossing the border.  The coyote who was driving undocumented people to our state had called him and asked him to speak to his sister so that she would stop crying.  The fear was that immigration  representatives would be suspicious of a young girl who continued to cry.  It seemed natural to me that a 17 year old who was leaving a home in rural Mexico, perhaps forever, would cry.  A few years later, I visited her in the hospital where she had given birth to a son.  She had formed a liaison with an urban  Hispanic which did not work out.  As the child started kindergarten, I began  to see her with Romeo.  I saw them often in the park where the bus stopped.  They were always running and playing and often holding hands.  Their love for each other was clear.  Then one day I drove by Romeo’s house and realized that someone had painted his car orange with two black strips.  I mentioned this to a relative and was told that no one drove the car except in emergencies.  Several months later, he needed to go to work after the busses quit running, drove the car, and was picked up by law enforcement for a traffic violation.  He was referred to immigration.  On the day immigration picked him  up, Julie took her last $50 and sent a money order to the jail where he was to be held.  This shy woman contacted everyone she knew in the community who had had any contact with ICE.  Several weeks later, Romeo was released without bail although an immigration hearing was scheduled next year.  Julie’s entire family drove the two hours to pick him up.  The Secure Community program has saved the community from orange cars.  I do fear the future hearing.  This is a young man who is single and has not been in the country long; he technically has no family in the U.S.  I wonder if legal marriage would help him?