Page 8 The Skanner July 25, 2018
News
Americans in Mixed-status Families Cope with Toll of Deportation
BOCA DEL RÍO, Mexico
— It’s almost as if Letty
Stegall is back home in
the United States, beside
her daughter to wake
her for school, fussing
over the list when her
husband goes shopping,
beaming when she sees
what her family has man-
aged to cook for dinner.
But Stegall’s face only
appears on a screen, her
words over the phone
and in a barrage of texts.
Lives once lived together
are split by 1,600 miles. A
woman who married an
American and gave birth
to an American and who
came to think of herself
as American, too, is now
deported to her native
Mexico.
“I lost everything,” she
says. “It’s just me.”
As the United States
takes a harder line on
immigration, thousands
who called the country
home are being forced
to go. Often, they leave
AP PHOTO/CHARLIE RIEDEL
By Matt Sedensky
AP National Writer
In this May 24, 2018 photo, Jennifer Tadeo-Uscanga, 17, and her
stepdad, Steve Stegall, stand outside the Kansas City, Mo., home they
shared with wife and mother Letty Stegall. Stegall, who lived in the
United States for 20 years, was deported back to Mexico in March,
leaving the pair to fill the void left by her absence.
behind spouses and chil-
dren with American citi-
zenship and must figure
out how to go on with
families fractured apart.
Studies have found an
estimated 8 million to 9
million Americans — the
majority of them chil-
dren — live with at least
one relative who is in the
country illegally, and so
each action to deport an
immigrant is just as like-
ly to entangle a citizen or
legal U.S. resident.
Stegall was 21 when
she paid a smuggler to
take her across the Rio
Grande in 1999. She
settled around Kansas
City, Missouri, and over
time, her fear of being
caught receded. Then six
years ago, police pulled
her over and charged
her with misdemeanor
drunken driving. The
arrest made authorities
aware she was in the U.S.
illegally and plunged her
case into the immigra-
tion system.
By then, Stegall was
divorced from her first
husband, with whom
she had a daughter, and
was dating Steve Stegall,
a native of Kansas City
whom she married later
that same year. She never
applied for a green card
because her former at-
torney told her she had
little to worry about with
a citizen husband and
child and because, under
U.S. law, she likely would
have had to return to
Mexico and wait out the
process there.
Barack Obama was still
president when Stegall
received a deportation
order, and like many
at that time, she was al-
lowed to stay in the U.S.
while she made regular
check-ins with Immi-
gration and Customs
Enforcement. An exec-
utive order issued by
President Donald Trump
changed ICE’s direction,
effectively declaring any
immigrant without legal
status subject to arrest.
Even the path once seen
as simplest to legal status
— marriage to a citizen
— no longer is always
enough to stave off de-
portation.
On Feb. 26, as Stegall
backed out of her drive-
way to head to the gym,
three cars careened in
and agents arrested her.
Four days later, she was
shackled aboard a plane
and headed back to Mex-
ico.
While ICE often touts
the criminal convictions
of those it picks up, ar-
rests for convictions like
driving under the influ-
ence (59,985 in fiscal year
2017) outnumber those of
immigrants previously
convicted for homicide,
sexual assault or kidnap-
ping. (Those collective-
ly totaled 6,553 in 2017.)
Meantime, arrests of im-
migrants without crim-
inal convictions have
increased since Trump
took office.
“The murderers are
still there. The gangsters
are still there. The rap-
ists are still there,” says
Stegall, 41.
Stegall’s deportation
means she could be
banned from the U.S. for
a decade. She prays pa-
perwork seeking to vali-
date her return through
her marriage could wind
through the system with-
in two years.
Back in Kansas City,
her husband, Steve, and
17-year-old daughter, Jen-
nifer Tadeo-Uscanga, are
lumbering along with-
out her. Dinners, once
an ever-changing parade
of feasts that charmed
the palates of Steve and
Jennifer, have become
spartan affairs. Plants
wilted and died, and
clothes came out of the
wash tinged in blue. Cel-
ebrations now typically
include tears.
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