5-Year-Old Facing Deportation

Dan Kowalski brought our attention to this article in the Boston Globe written by Javier Henandez about a 5-year-old girl smuggled into the U.S. from El Salvador:

Karla’s father, Carlos, 25, who was granted a temporary work permit six years ago, agonizes over the thought of staying behind without Karla, whom he only met for the first time nine months ago.

“You don’t really have any breaks from it,” Carlos Morales, a maintenance worker at Wal-Mart, said in Spanish.

“You wake up with it, you go to work with it, and you go to bed with it,” he said. “Every day, the suspense builds toward the day of the hearing.”

Immigration lawyers say that while it is unusual for a child of Karla’s age to face deportation, the dilemma faced by her parents is familiar. Families are often forced apart, as some members gain legal status and others confront punishments for entering the country illegally. Click here for the story.

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