{"id":666498,"date":"2019-01-08T09:10:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-08T16:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=666498"},"modified":"2019-01-08T10:59:09","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T17:59:09","slug":"whats-it-like-for-an-immigrant-child-to-have-a-glimpse-of-the-american-dream-then-have-it-taken-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2019\/01\/whats-it-like-for-an-immigrant-child-to-have-a-glimpse-of-the-american-dream-then-have-it-taken-away\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s it like for an immigrant child to have a glimpse of the American dream, then have it taken away?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_658501\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-658501\" src=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/20181214-wilder-folo-3x2-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Wilder Maldonado\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/20181214-wilder-folo-3x2-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/20181214-wilder-folo-3x2-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/20181214-wilder-folo-3x2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/20181214-wilder-folo-3x2-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/20181214-wilder-folo-3x2.jpg 1386w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Edward A. Ornelas \/ for ProPublica<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wilder Maldonado, 6, after an immigration court hearing in San Antonio, Texas, on Dec. 12.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Christmas wasn\u2019t going to be much this year at the Maldonados\u2019 tiny home in eastern El Salvador. Then 6-year-old Wilder arrived, lugging a duffel bag fat with the brightly colored remnants of his brief life in the United States \u2014 time he\u2019d spent separated from his father by immigration authorities.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly, the two shabby rooms with dirt floors and drab adobe walls turned festive. As a pot of chicken stew simmered on a wood-burning stove, a group of barefoot children rummaged with glee through the big black bag, pulling out treasures.<\/p>\n<p>Two-year-old Kevien claimed the Spider-Man pajamas and the talking Spider-Man mask that said things like, \u201cLook out, it\u2019s web-slinging time!\u201d Darwin, a neighbor\u2019s kid, posed in a pair of red Spider-Man glasses with silvery-white webs and blinking lights on the frames.<\/p>\n<p>Yohana, 14 and wispy like a ballerina, picked up a glossy soccer ball that had \u201cUSA,\u201d emblazoned on one side and called Darwin outside to play. Meanwhile, the baby, MiLeidi, 8 months old, squealed in delight at a stuffed Olaf, the snowman from \u201cFrozen,\u201d that was bigger than she was.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/trump-administration-zero-tolerance-policy-family-separation-foster-care-immigrant-children\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ProPublica<\/a>, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom.\u00a0Sign up for their\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.propublica.org\/forms\/newsletter_daily_email\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The only kid who didn\u2019t seem to care much about the contents of the duffel bag was Wilder. He sat by himself on the only bed in the house, apart from the commotion, engrossed in games on his mother\u2019s old cellphone. Kevien offered Wilder the talking mask, trying to entice him to come play. But, without looking up from the cellphone, Wilder shook his head and turned away.<\/p>\n<p>The toys in the duffel bag were all he had left from a seven-month journey to the U.S. with his father, Hilario Maldonado, that had taken him a world away from El Salvador and his family\u2019s impoverished existence, to a place with television sets and hot showers, where he\u2019d slept in a bunk bed and ate as much pizza as he wanted. They\u2019d traveled there in a succession of trucks so crowded with other immigrants that he\u2019d nearly suffocated, and they had reached their goal only to be separated for months in a uniquely American limbo. When he and his father were finally reunited, it was only to be put on a government airplane and flown back to El Salvador, undoing an effort that cost months of hardship and thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n<p>Wilder is one of the nearly 3,000 migrant children who were affected this year by the Trump administration\u2019s zero-tolerance policy. His separation from his father first became public when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/6-year-old-in-immigration-court-by-himself-zero-tolerance-family-separation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he appeared alone in court<\/a> in late November wearing a hat with googly eyes and a red yarn mohawk. Under the unprecedented crackdown, immigration officials were required to prosecute everyone they caught illegally crossing the border and to seize any children they brought with them.<\/p>\n<p>Wilder\u2019s father, a struggling 38-year-old farmer, was not aware of the policy when he set out from El Salvador, seeking decent work for himself and a brighter future for his son. He surrendered himself and his son to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers as soon as he crossed the Rio Grande into Texas. But after five days in CBP custody, agents took Wilder away from Maldonado, sending the boy to a temporary foster home in San Antonio and his father to a detention center about an hour\u2019s drive away.<\/p>\n<p>The zero-tolerance crackdown ended \u2014 at least officially \u2014 a short time later, when a storm of international outrage forced the administration to rescind it. A federal judge ordered authorities to reunite all the affected children with their families, an effort that took months and tens of millions of dollars because immigration officials hadn\u2019t kept complete records of which children belonged to which adults. Wilder, pudgy, with a buzz cut and missing most of his front teeth, was one of the last cases to be resolved.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Dec. 21 was Wilder\u2019s first morning back home. And his mind seemed somewhere else.<\/p>\n<p>When asked how he was doing, Wilder answered in English, without taking his eyes off the phone. \u201cI\u2019m fine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t respond at all when asked whether he was happy to be back. His mother, Maria Elida Cabrera, nudged him. \u201cWilder, you\u2019re happy to be home with me, right?\u201d she said in Spanish.<\/p>\n<p>Wilder looked up for a couple of seconds and forced a smile. \u201cYes, I\u2019m happy,\u201d he said, again in English, then returned to his game.<\/p>\n<p>Cabrera, 35, her straight black hair in a messy ponytail, walked out the backdoor of the house and lowered her voice so that Wilder couldn\u2019t hear her. \u201cThis has to be hard for him,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been hard for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Back with his family, Wilder didn\u2019t want to talk much about his experiences, not that he\u2019s old enough to make sense of them. Except for the immigration officials who separated him from his dad, he\u2019d been a victim of a lot of people\u2019s good intentions. There was his father\u2019s desperate attempt to lift his family out of misery; a Texas foster family\u2019s eagerness to provide him a comfortable, and comforting, life; and a federal court\u2019s decision to end zero tolerance and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/6-year-old-separated-from-his-father-tells-judge-he-wants-to-go-home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">send Wilder back to his family<\/a> in El Salvador.<\/p>\n<p>For now, the best insight into what might be going on in Wilder\u2019s young mind comes from the adults who shared his ordeal. They sound sad and whiplashed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know what it was about him, but it was hard to let him go,\u201d said Erica Gallegos, the San Antonio woman who took care of Wilder during his time in the U.S. She cried for most of a 45-minute phone call. \u201cIn a very short time, he became a part of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To Cabrera, Wilder\u2019s mother, his time away seemed an eternity. He had changed in so many ways that she described feeling dizzy just looking at him. None of his old clothes fit because he\u2019d been much thinner when he left. And his smile was filled with gaps from all the baby teeth he\u2019d lost. He\u2019d also ridden on an airplane and a ferry, swam in the Gulf of Mexico, let a barber cut his hair, gotten vaccinations, had his first crush on a girl, gone to a movie theater, and learned to tie his shoes, write his name and ride a bike. His vocabulary had grown. He can count to 20 in English. And he doesn\u2019t bark commands at her anymore, she said. He now says \u201cplease\u201d and \u201cthank you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are things he tells me, and I don\u2019t know what he\u2019s talking about,\u201d Cabrera said. \u201cWhat\u2019s a Grinch?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Migrating to the U.S. was not new to Wilder\u2019s father. Maldonado had lived in the U.S. through the late 1990s and early 2000s, first immigrating illegally, then gaining temporary protected status in 2001. El Salvador had suffered a series of deadly earthquakes and the Bush administration agreed to let 150,000 Salvadoran immigrants stay and work in the U.S., hoping the money they\u2019d send back to their families would help the Central American country recover.<\/p>\n<p>Maldonado was a single man back then. He worked restaurant and construction jobs up and down the East Coast, from Tampa, Florida, to Long Island in New York, to help take care of his mother in El Salvador. But in 2003, Maldonado said, he returned home when his mother fell ill, using some of the money he\u2019d made to get her medical attention. Shortly afterward, he met Cabrera \u2014 who is related to the wife of one of his brothers \u2014 started a family, bought a few head of cattle to breed and sell, and built their simple home with his own hands. It\u2019s located on a patch of his wife\u2019s family\u2019s property outside a quaint Salvadoran town called Lislique.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy intention was to stay in El Salvador,\u201d Maldonado said. \u201cI only left because I started to have problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cabrera and Maldonado said the cattle business began failing about four years ago. Maldonado had attempted an expansion, borrowing several thousand dollars to grow his herd. But the country\u2019s violent street gangs began moving into Lislique and demanding a cut of Maldonado\u2019s profits. Cabrera said her husband started looking for odd jobs to supplement his income to pay both his debts and the money the gangs demanded.<\/p>\n<p>Each month, there was less money to cover the family\u2019s needs, Cabrera said. And when Maldonado told the gangs he couldn\u2019t afford to pay them anymore, she said, they beat him up and threatened to kill him.<\/p>\n<p>In May, Cabrera said, her husband decided to gamble one more time. He borrowed $5,500 to pay smugglers, known as coyotes, to take him to the U.S. to seek asylum. The plan was to earn enough money to provide for her and the kids left behind, and then, once his status was secure, bring them to the U.S., too.<\/p>\n<p>The coyotes, she said, warned Maldonado that crossing the border wasn\u2019t as easy as it was the last time he migrated. Rather than sneaking into the country, they told him he should turn himself in immediately to border authorities. And they suggested that he bring along one of his kids because he\u2019d spend less time in detention if he had a child with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t want to let Wilder go,\u201d Cabrera said. \u201cBut Hilario said it was the only way. He promised he would take good care of Wilder. He said Wilder would have opportunities that don\u2019t exist here in El Salvador.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maldonado said the trip across Central America and Mexico, mostly in the back of pickup trucks and packed tractor-trailers that were not equipped for human cargo, was grueling for him and nearly fatal for Wilder. \u201cI was trying to give him a better life,\u201d Maldonado said of his son, \u201cand he almost died, twice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the trailers, Maldonado said, was so overcrowded and tightly sealed that Wilder passed out. He scrambled to find an opening in the trailer\u2019s hull, he said, shoving aside the men standing next to it and pushing Wilder\u2019s mouth and nose against the hole until he opened his eyes.<\/p>\n<p>On another leg of the trip, Wilder fainted again as he and his father rode in the back of a pickup truck in a driving rainstorm. When asked why he would take such risks with his son, Maldonado said: \u201cI was desperate. I thought if I didn\u2019t get out of El Salvador, my children would starve or become orphans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maldonado said he thought the hardest part of the journey was over when he and Wilder arrived at the U.S. border on May 31. Then they ran head-on into the Trump administration\u2019s zero-tolerance policy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe agents came to me and grabbed Wilder out of my arms,\u201d said Maldonado, a brawny man with a square jaw and metal caps on his front teeth. \u201cHe was screaming for me: \u2018Papa, papa!\u2019 But I couldn\u2019t do anything. I couldn\u2019t run after him. I remember I just watched as they took him. I felt like my heart was going to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A few days later, the federal government placed Wilder in foster care with the Gallegos family in San Antonio. Erica Gallegos said there were four other foster children in her house during much of the time Wilder was there. One of them was a 5-year-old Central American boy who had also been separated from his parent.<\/p>\n<p>Gallegos said the two separated boys slept in the same room, Wilder on the top bunk.<\/p>\n<p>Wilder, confused and tired, didn\u2019t speak much his first couple of days in her home, Gallegos said. She said she gave him his space, engaging when he wanted to do so and leaving him alone when he didn\u2019t. By the end of the first week, however, she said she managed to win him over by making it clear that he hadn\u2019t been taken away from his family for good. She was only taking care of him until his family was reunited.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI told him he could call me t\u00eda,\u201d Gallegos said, the Spanish word for aunt. She started to cry and sniffle, \u201cI wanted him to feel at home, but I didn\u2019t want him to think I was trying to be his mom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>From then on, she said, Wilder settled happily into the Gallegos clan; mom, dad and four children, including three who are adults with families of their own. And the family warmed to him. Erica Gallegos enrolled him in first grade and took him to church on Sundays. They had regular pizza and movie nights. She took him home to visit her parents, in the border town of Del Rio. And Wilder joined the family on a beach vacation to Corpus Christi, where he ate s\u2019mores, watched dolphins swim alongside a ferry and marveled at the size of the sea.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike other children she\u2019s cared for, Gallegos said Wilder seemed to crave rules and routine. She said she taught him once how to fold his clothes and put away his shoes and rarely had to remind him again. She said he made his own bed and asked her to inspect it to make sure he\u2019d done it right. And at night, she said, Wilder wouldn\u2019t fall asleep until she said prayers with him.<\/p>\n<p>Gallegos said Wilder enjoyed going with her 13-year-old daughter to baseball and volleyball games. In fact, she said, he\u2019d go with her just about anywhere. \u201cHe loved my daughter,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cHe would always stare at her. One time he asked my husband if she could be his girlfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other than Spider-Man and pepperoni pizza, Gallegos said that Wilder\u2019s favorite thing was a long, hot shower.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you want me to tell you how long his showers were?\u201d she said. \u201cThirty minutes. I\u2019d go in to get him, and the room would be hot and steamy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gallegos started to sniffle again. \u201cI didn\u2019t ever want him to go. I remember telling the social worker to let me call his mom and ask her to let me take care of him. My husband would tell me, \u2018Remember, he\u2019s not ours.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Wilder\u2019s family was in crisis. Maldonado was stuck in detention. He had failed to pass his credible fear interview, the first crucial step in the asylum process in which an officer affirms that an immigrant has a justifiable fear of harm in his home country. And it would be months before he\u2019d get a hearing before a judge. Meanwhile, back in El Salvador, Cabrera struggled on her own to care for their other three children.<\/p>\n<p>Kevien, the 2-year-old, developed parasites in October. He was vomiting, had diarrhea and, Cabrera said, his abdomen swelled like a basketball. She had no money for food and medicine, until an immigrant advocacy organization, established to help families affected by zero tolerance, learned about Cabrera\u2019s troubles and sent money. \u201cWithout that help, who knows what would have happened,\u201d Cabrera said. \u201cI don\u2019t even want to think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By December, Maldonado was tired of fighting. An immigration judge had ruled against his asylum petition, and while he could have appealed, that would have kept him in detention several more weeks. He felt the odds of winning asylum were against him, he said, and his family was falling apart. He agreed to plead guilty to illegally entering the country and be deported. He also asked to take Wilder home with him.<\/p>\n<p>This time, the choice was Wilder\u2019s. When authorities physically separated him from his father, they separated his asylum petition as well. Therefore it was up to him, not his father, to decide whether he would give up the claim and go home. Wilder initially appeared in an immigration court without a lawyer. Afterward, his father\u2019s attorney, Thelma O. Garcia, stepped in to represent him. A transcript of the interview between Wilder and Garcia suggests that the gravity of the decision was lost on him.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney: \u201cHello, Wilder, do you wish to return to your home?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilder: \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Attorney: \u201cDo you understand what I\u2019m asking you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilder: \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Attorney: \u201cDo you want to return to court?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilder: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Attorney: \u201cDo you want to return with your dad, and your mom and the rest of your family?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilder: \u201cYes, I want to return to my family and see them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Attorney: \u201cOK, we are going to help you return with them very soon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilder: \u201cSpider-Man is my favorite superhero.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, the statement was sufficient for an immigration judge to order that Wilder be reunited with his father and sent back to El Salvador.<\/p>\n<p>Gallegos said that when Wilder realized he was going to be sent home, he began to withdraw again. She said there\u2019s a Christian song they used to sing on their way to school every morning called \u201cTuyo Soy,\u201d Spanish for \u201cI Am Yours.\u201d But when she put it on one morning, as his departure day approached, she said, Wilder began sobbing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to go,\u201d Gallegos said he told her. \u201cI don\u2019t want to leave you. I\u2019m going to miss you so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said she tried to reassure Wilder that things would be OK, burying her own fears. \u201cHe had everything he wanted here,\u201d she said, \u201cand he knew that when he went home, he wasn\u2019t going to have that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before Wilder left, Gallegos and her husband rented \u201cRambo\u201d and ordered pizza. They woke him before dawn and brought him downstairs to get dressed so that he didn\u2019t disturb his bunkmate. Wilder noticed that Gallegos had packed all his things in a big black duffel bag and asked, \u201cI\u2019m not going to school today?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, you\u2019re going back to your family today,\u201d she answered.<\/p>\n<p>His face went blank, she said. And he stopped talking, barely saying a word throughout breakfast and the car ride to meet his social worker. \u201cHe was silent,\u201d Gallegos said of Wilder. \u201cI tried not to cry because I didn\u2019t want him to feel bad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When he got out of the car, Wilder wrapped his arms around Gallegos\u2019 waist. In the six months they had been together, she said she\u2019d watched him grow from a size 4 to a size 8 and lose most of his baby teeth. She cried, too, as he walked away.<\/p>\n<p>Wilder was reunited with his father at the airport in Laredo, Texas. They were loaded onto a government plane filled with about 100 other Salvadoran deportees. They landed in El Salvador before lunch. Wilder\u2019s size was not the only thing that distinguished him from the rest of the bunch. The men, including Wilder\u2019s dad, wore tattered T-shirts. But Wilder arrived dressed in black suede Timberlands, a red flannel shirt, a hat with Spider-Man eyes and a frown.<\/p>\n<p>There was another 6-year-old boy on the flight with his mother. They had been separated from each other in September, months after a judge ordered the government to stop the practice, and were reunited that morning. The boy, named Esteven, was chattering away with his mom, as if filling her in on all she\u2019d missed. But Maldonado said Wilder barely spoke to him as officials registered their return and advised them of the government programs available to provide assistance.<\/p>\n<p>His face finally lit up when he saw his mother. She cried as he rushed into her arms. Cabrera said that Wilder told her he was glad to see her, telling her: \u201cMama, when I was away, I didn\u2019t know when I\u2019d ever see you again. I missed you, Mama.\u2019\u201c<\/p>\n<p>But by the time they had gotten home, Wilder had shut down again. And it was Cabrera trying to win him over. He told her he had changed his name to Peter Parker, but she didn\u2019t know that was Spider-Man\u2019s alter ego. He wanted to watch television, but theirs had died. The tortillas weren\u2019t prepared to Wilder\u2019s liking, so he was feeding his to the cat. He wanted to show her that he could ride a bicycle. Cabrera said with her husband out of work and $5,500 in debt, a new bike was far beyond their means.<\/p>\n<p>Wilder, she said, has told her he has a plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe told me that when he gets older, he wants to go to the United States to work,\u201d she said. \u201cHe says he\u2019ll get a good job and send money to take care of me.\u201d<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/pixel.propublica.org\/pixel.js\" async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration\u2019s zero-tolerance policy separated kids and parents, putting the children in foster care, where many of them got a taste of a life much better than the one they left. What happens when they land back home?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":658501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,234],"class_list":["post-666498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-children"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666498"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":666503,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666498\/revisions\/666503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}