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Raquel Garay lives just a few minutes walk from the U.S.-Mexico border, the line that has separated her from her family for more than two years. Since being deported from the U.S., where she lived for more than 40 years, in 2013, she lives alone in a country that feels foreign to her while her husband, children and grandchildren remain just a few hours away, across a border bridge she cant cross.

The story is familiar for many deported immigrants, potentially hundreds of thousands, who have been torn away from their families in the United States. Its what spurred President Barack Obama to pledge last year a smarter immigration policy that focuses on deporting felons, not families. While he has pushed executive action to shield those with strong family ties in the U.S., he has also touted an 80 percent increase in the number of immigrants with criminal convictions deported from the U.S. during his presidency.

That stirs conflicted feelings for Garay, who is a convicted felon who was removed from the U.S. for a deportable, although nonviolent, offense -- and also a mother, grandmother and wife of U.S. citizens who had barely recovered from two devastating medical traumas in the family before their lives were again upended by her deportation.

"Its affected all of us here, said Mario Jr., Raquels 24-year-old son. They separated a family.

Raquel, now 54, had lived in the United States since age 12 after her parents brought her over the border in the 1970s. Eventually she married Mario Garay, a U.S. citizen, got her green card and built a home and family with him in Grand Prairie, Texas.

But soon, the Garays discovered that their infant daughter Celia was having problems with her sight. After going from doctor to doctor, Celia eventually wasdiagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer. But the cancer already hadprogressed by the time the diagnosis came, and the Garays had to have both Celias eyes removed.

While Mario worked to support the family, Raquel ferried Celia to a slew of specialist visits and treatments while helping her navigate the world without sight. Eventually, Celias condition stabilized and Raquel enrolled her in a school for the blind. But years of stress and worry already hadtaken their toll, and during that time, Raquel said, she began to make mistakes.

I got into a lot of trouble in my relationship with my husband, with my drinking, she said. I was thinking of the future -- what was going to happen with my daughter? She was blind, and she was going to be blind forever.

In 1997 she was arrested for possession of a controlled substance: less than 3 grams of cocaine found in her car. She was convicted of a felony and deported in 2000.

I had a lot of anger and a lot of sadness, Raquel said. I was going through a lot of trauma with my daughter's cancer. Its something you never get over. But she acknowledges it was still a grave lapse of judgment on her part. I know I made a lot of mistakes, she said.

Excerpt from:
Immigration Reform: When Deporting Felons Breaks Families Apart

Often discussed immigration reform will most likely be a long time coming, but several county residents are taking matters into their own hands, lobbying Congress to act now to speed up the waiting time for green cards.

Germantown resident Shyam Sriram is one of them. He is vice president of the Maryland Chapter of Immigration Voice, a grass roots organization concerned about the backlog of green card applications.

Its not ridiculous, its outrageous, Sriram said. The way the laws are written it can take 70 years to [get a green card].

A green card allows an immigrant to become eligible for permanent resident status and work in the U.S. It is also a first step towards becoming a U.S. citizen. It allows holders to open new businesses, change jobs, ask for a raise, travel to their home countries and return to the United States and be assured that they will not have to leave the country if they lose their jobs.

With an H-1B visa for highly skilled workers, that most Immigration Voice members have according to Sriram, those simple acts are difficult if not impossible.

Sriram, 35, came to the United States from India to attend graduate school at the University of Texas, Arlington. He has a masters degree in electrical engineering and works in the transportation business. He has a H-1B visa which allows him to work.

He has to stay with the same employer, in the same job he said. His employer is his green card sponsor and any change in his employment means he must reapply for a green card with the new employer as his sponsor and that would bump him to the end of the line. He has had his application for a green card in for six years, he said, and thinks it will take another 10 years.

Its a complex issue, he said. We want [Congress] to understand the immigration system should be fair to immigrants as well as Americans.

The system as it is now set up works to the advantage of big corporations, he said.

The problem right now is bigger companies are taking advantage of the system by hiring people and keeping them in the same position, he said. The unintended consequence is it hurts Americans as well. The way the law is written employers hire immigrants and keep them.

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