A Kenosha County family’s sudden move to Mexico is now being cited by immigration advocates as an example of why they say federal immigration policies need to change.
Alex Fuentes had lived in the United States for nearly 20 years and had been trying for more than a decade to gain legal status, according to advocates. After he was denied a green card, Fuentes was barred from returning to the U.S. To keep their family together, his wife and children left their home in the Kenosha area and moved to Mexico.
The American Immigration Council says families like the Fuentes family highlight problems in the current immigration system, especially for long-term undocumented residents who have been trying to follow the legal process but still have no clear path to permanent status.
Nanya Gupta, policy director for the council, says immigration enforcement has damaged trust in communities and needs to be reshaped.
“We urge leaders to act on these reforms because it is this part of the immigration system that has been weaponized against immigrants, American communities, and core tenets of our democracy,” Gupta said.
The council is calling for immigration judges to have more flexibility in cases involving minor violations. That could include options such as fines, community service or probation instead of deportation.
Dara Lind, a senior fellow with the council, says a fair system should still hold people accountable, but the penalty should match the violation.
“If you have the kind of compelling positive equities that we see in headlines every day when people are torn out of their communities, instead of deportation being the only option for them, that they have an alternative way to get right with the law that they may very well have been trying to get right with for several years,” Lind said.
The council says about 13 million undocumented immigrants are living in legal limbo in the United States, with many having arrived before 2009. The Trump administration recently announced that people seeking U.S. green cards must return to their home countries to apply.
For advocates, the Fuentes family’s case is not just a national immigration issue. They say it is a Wisconsin story about what happens when families who have built lives in local communities are forced to leave those communities behind.
