Bummer: Single (Illegal Alien) Mom Is Totally Paralyzed With Fear

Suppose you’re a single mom or dad and make the conscious decision that you’re going to commit a crime. You get away with the crime, but now you’re living in fear that law enforcement will catch up with you, arrest you, then put you in jail, separating you from your kids. Who’s at fault?

A single mom, undocumented, living in the shadows of Ice

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Maria – a pseudonym – says “it’s the little details you don’t think about” that make life difficult for her and other 11 million undocumented people living in the US. She routinely sees her three children noticing the differences between them and their classmates. “Other people get in the car, buckle the kids up, put the heat up and drive. I can’t do that.”

In Portugal, Maria was a professional seamstress. A fine career, but she still couldn’t make ends meet. Working seven days a week only covered the basic bills and rent, even with a joint income. Her then husband sometimes worked construction or other odd jobs. “Anything else I grew on my own, like fruits, vegetables … I had animals”.

Portuguese citizens are one of 38 nationalities exempt from needing a tourist Visa. As a part of the Visa Waiver Program, they can lawfully remain in the US for up to 90 days. The family flew to New Jersey in 2002.

Once there, Maria and her family made the decision to stay. She hoped to find a stable job that could afford them savings, and schooling for herself and her daughter. They settled well into Newark’s Portuguese community, and soon Maria found consistent work as a housecleaner through a friend. She had two other boys.

She and her family made the conscious decision to violate U.S. federal law. This is not the fault of the United States and its citizens. We bear no responsibility for her criminal behavior. This is on her head.

Today, she is a single mom of three and her household’s sole source of income. She starts her day at 5:15am six days a week by watching the news before heading to the gym where she works maintenance. It pays substantially better than housecleaning.

How is this gym employing her? She has no authorization to work. Either they’re employing her illegally or she has committed identity theft, which can harm actual U.S. citizens. She claims she has no social security number later in the article, which, of course, is meant to be a tear jerker and tell us all how wonderful illegal aliens are and that we should simply reward them with citizenship for breaking our laws.

Living in New Jersey, and with her ex-husband in prison, Maria feels safe and at home – but the fear of deportation, and being separated from her children, is paralyzing. She also fears for her personal safety. “If I have to go back, he’s going to be there and I’m going to be dead,” Maria says, referring to her ex- husband.

Though she has never committed a crime – in fact, she has filed her taxes every year since 2002 – she and her daughter are on Ice’s radar. The morning after Maria returned home from the hospital, two officers knocked on her door. She let them in.

“I was terrified. I thought that they were there for me. I didn’t think I had a choice. They demanded me to give them my ex-husband’s passport”. She did.

At the end of the day, she put herself in this position. And every illegal seems to have a Story Of Woe (he ex-husband is a nutjob who raped her 17 year old daughter and threatened to kill people). But, this is Not Our Problem. The illegals, like “Maria”, put themselves in this position. Are we supposed to reward 11 million plus illegals with citizenship, or even just resident status, for their bad behavior?

Perhaps we could take care of our own, first. Our homeless, our veterans, our poor, our downtrodden.