"It was a beautiful day when a van stopped in front of my house, the driver identified himself as a policeman, handcuffed me and brought me to San Francisco," said Tatiana Miroshnik, a 37-year-old undocumented Russian resident of California. "As it turned out, they had followed me as I drove my son to school and then returned home. After I parked my car, they just came up to my house and took me. They were not rude but I nearly had a heart attack. I was unaware anything was wrong; I hadn't hear anything from my lawyer for a long time and thought that everything was fine."
Miroshnik was arrested for living illegally in California for the last 13 years. During this time, she was married twice, divorced twice, and gave birth to two girls – Tatiana, now 10, and Nastasia, 8. She also has a son, Eugene, who came with Miroshnik to the United States when he was 3. Being a professional violinist, she started to give music lessons to kids here. Also she sang in a choir at a Presbyterian Church in Centerville. She was building her life in America as any typical American resident would, with one exception – she had no Green Card.
These days, Miroshnik spends most of her time at home, in Fremont, CA, but now wears an ankle bracelet that allows law enforcement authorities to track her movements at all times. Every Tuesday a policeman inspects her house. Every Friday she goes to San Francisco to report in. And in three weeks, Miroshnik is to be deported back to Russia and will have to pay for the necessary documents and airplane tickets herself.
"For 13 years I tried to legalize myself," said Miroshnik who came to America on a fiancée visa. "I did everything the lawyers asked me to do. I met with a judge; I gathered all the necessary documents as instructed by my lawyers. When I got married, I applied for my Green Card. I have my Social Security card and my driver's license. I had an employment authorization. Within two years of my marriage, I divorced my American husband and thought that I would be able to legalize easily. My lawyer informed me that while my immigration case was pending court, I was here legally."
There are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, representing more than 3.6 percent of the population. That's why there have been long discussions about immigration reform. One solution to the problem is to limit the ways to enter the country and to secure the borders, while deporting all the undocumented immigrants. The other way is to extend amnesty to all undocumented immigrants.
President G. W. Bush brought up the need for immigration reform and supported giving law-abiding immigrants an opportunity to get their legal residency after paying any back taxes they owed.
After the healthcare reform battle ended and legislation was signed, the Obama administration also brought up the problem of immigration reform, but did so very carefully. In a speech on Cinco de Mayo, a national Mexican holiday, Obama stated that comprehensive immigration reform was needed, and he would like to take care of it before the end of the year. "Democrats and Republicans will work together on the reform," he declared.
Senators Harry Reid (D-NV), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) have already submitted a draft of the reform. They suggest strengthening the border's security before giving undocumented immigrants residency permits.
According to Miroshnik, the court hearings on her case were postponed several times – first for three years, then for another year. In January of this year, immigration authorities denied her residency – a decision that took four years. According to Miroshnik, her lawyer failed to inform her about this last decision and she missed out on the 50-day grace period when she could file for an appeal.
Miroshnik says she has nowhere to go in Russia – her elderly mother lives in a small studio in Samara – and has no job, and her children don't know Russian. Furthermore, her daughters' father may refuse to let her take them back to Russia since they have joint custody. If Miroshnik is deported, she is subject to a 10-year penalty and cannot reenter the United States before then, basically keeping her away from her daughters for a decade.
"The court procedures seem unreal, like they exists and doesn't exist at the same time, and they are ridiculously long. I have lived and worked like a normal person and think that it doesn't make sense to deport me. But as it turns out, the authorities need legitimate reasons to let me stay here and the fact that my daughters are American citizens doesn't count," she said.
Bruce Green, a pastor at the Presbyterian Church where Miroshnik prays with her kids and sings in the choir, considers Tatiana and her children fine and well respected members of the local community. When church members heard about Miroshnik's deportation, they organized marches to protest the court's decision. Students from Eugene's high school also joined the protests, with close to 300 students showing up at a recent one.
"The word 'illegal' has a negative connotation and there are different kinds of illegal immigrants. I think that authorities should focus on catching illegals with a criminal background. Tatiana and Eugene are the ideal candidates for an immigration program that would grant them residency. They are our neighbors and a part of our community. They go to the same church with us. We need such immigrants," said Pastor Green.
In recent years, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has focused on catching undocumented immigrants with criminal pasts. In 2009, the number of immigrants detained and deported from the United States increased by 19 percent. This year it is projected to increase by 40 percent. The number of deported undocumented foreigners without a criminal record, like Miroshnik and her son, decreased by 3 percent and is expected to go down 33 percent in 2010.
A Washington Post article published in March focused on a special memorandum written by the head of ICE detention and removal operations, James Chaparro, which stated that agency employees must comply with annual quotas to arrest undocumented immigrants. For 2010, the target is 400,000 deportations, including 150,000 immigrants with criminal pasts. The memorandum includes measures proposed by Chaparro to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants with no criminal records.
Over the years, Miroshnik has written many letters to U.S. lawmakers asking for help, in particular to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D- CA), but has been refused on the grounds that she is not an American citizen, and therefore they can't represent her interests. She even wrote to the First Lady Laura Bush. In response Miroshnik received an empty envelope from the White House. She keeps the envelope as a souvenir.
"It feels like I've been in the meat grinder all these years. I'm mentally exhausted," said Miroshnik. She can't imagine her life outside of America. Her kids are Americans and her family is a part of the community. She doesn't have friends in Russia and will be a stranger there. "The law is absolutely heartless. We are treated like baggage that has to be sent back. This is wrong. Something needs to change here," she said.
