What it's like to have your parents deported

Immigration agents are told to deport anyone they see fit who is living in US without documentation

In December 2015, I was heading to the library here at Berea College to study for finals when I got a call from my mother’s lawyer. He said Ma was fighting deportation to Ghana, and I would need to write an affidavit explaining why she should be allowed to stay in the United States.

The phone call redirected me, zombielike, across the quad to my dorm. I sat at my computer in a daze of anger and sadness, glaring at the blank screen as if it were the face of Immigration and Customs Enforcement itself.

I couldn’t believe this was happening — again.

My father had been deported abruptly three years earlier when I was still in high school. He was expelled after overstaying his tourist visa, the same reason my mother was facing deportation. His absence was unbearable, and the confusion and shame that came with it eroded my confidence. Most of my friends in Columbus, Ohio, had no way of understanding what I was going through, and I worried many would actually approve of the government’s tearing our family apart.

Last week, President Trump announced new plans to crack down on immigrants. Immigration agents have been told to deport anyone they see fit who is living here without documentation. This is a significant change from the Obama administration, which told agents to pursue only those convicted of serious crimes. As my family learned, the agents didn’t always stick to those rules. We got a heartbreaking taste of what this new regime will entail.

Back in my dorm after the lawyer’s call, I tried to detail the advantages of keeping my mother in the country. But how was I supposed to explain the importance of a mother? Should I write about how my father was the one who pushed me in my studies, while my mother brought life to everything else in my world? That she infused the lives of my sisters and me with Ghanaian culture and taught us how to cook traditional dishes? Her Ghanaian doughnuts — bofrot — were so popular with our neighbors and our friends at church that she sold them for extra cash. Did this make her more worthy of staying?

I was panicked. My mother had always been there for me, my rock, just as faith was hers. Even in times of immense stress — like when my father was deported — she didn’t complain. She simply took a seat to pray.

I couldn’t muster that kind of strength. I climbed into bed and turned out the lights.

I can’t say how long I lay there before Shona, my roommate of two years, came home. She listened to my story and took charge. She emailed my professors and advisers to ask for a leave of absence for me. She convinced me that I didn’t need to stay at school for finals out of a misguided belief that it would show that my family was worthy of America.

I gathered my things and caught a ride home to Columbus.

My four sisters and I accompanied Ma to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement court hearing in Cleveland. We argued that she should be allowed to stay in the United States with us because she was not an enforcement priority, someone who was a threat to “national security, public safety and border security.” We had lived in the United States for 15 years, having arrived in 2000 when I was 4. The judge wasn’t moved.

I took time off from school to be with my mother but was still very supported by Berea. My advisers and professors let me delay my exams, and the college president even wrote an affidavit on my mother’s behalf.

Still, a few months later, my sisters and I found ourselves packing up our home to send Ma on her way. Neighbors and members of the church were there, lifting boxes and stuffing us full of food. We said goodbye.

It has been more than a year now since the lawyer’s devastating call. I talk with my parents — we use WhatsApp when there is a good internet connection in Ghana — but it’s terrible not to have them here. I don’t know when I will see them again. My sisters and I have no family home.

Now I am becoming increasingly afraid for my own future in this country. I, too, am undocumented, and I don’t want to leave the only country I’ve ever really known. For now, I’m still safe from deportation. I was part of the first class of college students to qualify for President Barack Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative. It protects from deportation undocumented individuals who arrived in the United States before age 16 and makes them eligible for a two-year worker’s permit. The directives President Trump issued last week don’t change that. But when my permit expires, will he renew it, when virtually anyone else who is undocumented in the United States is in danger of deportation?

Before my father left the country, he told me to keep my head straight and stay focused — that there were people in worse situations. My mother reminded us daughters to trust in God and take care of one another. I try to channel their bravery, but I am scared and worried for other families like mine.

© 2017 The New York Times News Service