Maria Garcia Juarez
Maria Garcia Juarez: "I was misguided."
Maria Garcia Juarez, 23, of Southwest Detroit has a sad story -- one occurring with regularity around the country.
She hasn't been to Mexico since she was a baby, but now the U.S. government plans to deport her by the end of the month because she is not a citizen and was busted for a couple car thefts as a youth in California, according to a report by Chastity Pratt-Dawsey of Bridge magazine, Detroit Public TV and the Detroit Journalism Cooperative. One theft involved a high-speed police chase.
“I made a mistake, but it should not . . . define who I am. I was a child,” Juarez tells Pratt-Dawsey. “I was misguided.”
She'll leave behind her husband who has been diagnosed with leukemia, and her 18-month-old son who needs to be evaluated to determine why he isn't speaking.
Her husband and son are American citizens. She is not, though she came to the U.S. when she was eight months old.
When Juarez departs, she has no idea where she'll go in Mexico or when she'll be back.
Juarez was ordered to leave the country last June while President Barack Obama was in office. She exhausted her appeals. Her attorney, Carine Saleh, said Juarez would’ve been granted permission to stay in America under the policies of the Obama administration based on her husband’s illness and her clean adult criminal record, but that is speculation, writes Pratt-Dawsey.
Watch the compelling report below for more details.
