Kids are collateral damage in push

David Marquez and his three little brothers packed their bags and left Thursday for Mexico, a place they had only heard about. They'll meet a whole new set of relatives as they are introduced to the “City of Eternal Spring,” where their mother grew up.

Their biggest reason for going, though, is to reunite with the mom they haven't seen since she was deported nearly a year ago.

It is a bittersweet moment for their mother, Herrendia Hernandez, an illegal immigrant expelled after authorities arrested her for using someone else's ID to work as a hotel cleaner in Norfolk, Neb.

Although the single mother is overjoyed to have won a Nebraska court battle to regain custody of her sons, she laments that they'll now be raised in Mexico, with fewer educational and economic opportunities.

David, Miguel, Edwin and Rogelio, ages 12 to 3, are part of the human fallout of illegal immigration: young U.S. citizens uprooted from their homeland after a parent gambled at a better life and lost. Hernandez, 36, was charged with two felonies related to impersonating a U.S. citizen.

An area spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency does not keep track of how many youths face the same circumstances.

But a 2009 study ordered by Congress reported that, although the number is probably low, at least 108,434 parents of U.S. citizens were removed from the country between 1998 and 2007 because of immigration violations.

Since January, the Mexican Consulate in Omaha has transported four children in addition to Hernandez's to be with their deported parents.

Overall, deportations continue to climb. In the five-state region that includes Nebraska and Iowa, the number jumped 200 percent this decade and hit a high of 6,317 last year.

In cases in which there are no criminal charges, parents generally can take children back to their home country with them, said regional ICE spokesman Gregory Palmore. However, when a felony keeps a parent such as Hernandez behind bars, state child protective services officials typically step in.

And court battles can ensue.

Such was the case of Hernandez's four boys, who had been living in Madison County in northeastern Nebraska, where state officials investigated Hernandez's ability to parent properly.

The drama began May 7, when Hernandez left her boys with a baby sitter and reported to her maid's job at the Norfolk Holiday Inn Express.

What Hernandez didn't know then was that a California woman had reported her Social Security number as stolen. The woman learned that someone was impersonating her when the Internal Revenue Service told her that she owed $1,867 in back taxes.

Authorities traced the fraud to the Norfolk hotel.

Hernandez, who had been living in the United States illegally for nearly 20 years, was arrested after admitting that she had purchased fake work papers on the street in California.

She remained in jail until she was deported in July. She did not see her sons during the 10 months after her arrest.

The boys were placed together in a Madison County foster care home because Hernandez had no relative nearby to care for them.

While all sides involved in the case agree that protecting children is paramount, some argue that the family's separation was unnecessarily long.

“We can understand when it is child abuse or drugs,” said Edgar Rebollar, who works on such cases for the Mexican Consulate in Omaha. “But to keep them apart because of a criminal charge . . . based on her working to support her kids?”

Todd Reckling of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services would not comment on specific cases but said that reunification probes generally are no different for children with foreign-born parents, except that the consulate from the relevant country is notified.

Also, a home study of the parent in the parent's native land typically is required.

If it were up to the department, court records show, the children would have been released to their mother in December.

But an attorney appointed to represent the children, and the kids' foster mother, raised further questions as to whether the boys might be returning to a risky situation.

Ultimately, Madison County Judge Donna Farrell Taylor determined in late February that Hernandez's children suffered from developmental disabilities and that at least one had a hearing loss. But the judge said the evidence indicated that the mother did not cause the children's special needs and sought assistance for them.

Reunification was ordered.

The social services arm of the Mexican government agreed to help connect the kids with special education services there.

Because they were born in the United States and have dual nationality, the four boys would have no problem returning to the United States. Indeed, the two oldest said Thursday that they want to come back in the summer to visit friends in Nebraska and relatives in California.

Their mother, in an interview from Mexico, said she is banned from coming back for 10 years.

For now, Hernandez said, she and the boys will live with her sister in Cuernavaca, called the “City of Eternal Spring” because of its pleasant climate.

After the children are settled, Hernandez — who gets no financial or other support from the boys' fathers — said she'll probably get a cleaning job.

The first thing she planned to do when reunited with her sons was to hug each one and explain their separation.

They didn't grasp why their mom was in jail, a place the kids thought “bad” people went, Hernandez said.

“I didn't want to do anything bad,” she said. “I wanted to work to give our family a better future.”

Thursday, the brothers scrambled to catch their flight. Slick roads and snow had slowed their drive from northeastern Nebraska to Eppley Airfield in Omaha.

A Mexican Consulate staff member corralled the two youngest boys while a state social worker hurried to check in. Both adults would travel with the boys.

“I'm nervous,” said David, the oldest brother. “I'll miss my friends. I've never been on a plane before.”

Expectations of Mexico?

“No snow,” the bilingual 12-year-old said in unaccented English. “There's a beach, I think.”

Eight-year-old Miguel said it was rough telling his classmates goodbye.

“It's a long story,” the second-grader said, reflecting out loud on the past year. “I was shocked to go to foster. ... They said my mom's not American.”

Hernandez, meanwhile, was on a 16-hour drive to the U.S.-Mexican border to pick up her boys. She said she prays that they will adjust well.

“I don't know about Mexico,” David said. “But we want to see our mom, and stay together.”

Contact the writer:

444-1224, cindy.gonzalez@owh.com