STORIES

    Ramona Estrada was born and raised in Texas.  Her son Jacobo Diego, Jr. was born March 21, 2008 in Laurel, Mississippi.  Baby Jacobo lived with his mom, and his dad, Jacobo Sr., who worked at the local factory to support the family.   When Jacobo Jr. was six months old, Immigration agents raided the Howard Industries factory, and put Jacobo Sr. in immigration detention.  
    Jacobo Diego Sr. is a citizen of Mexico.   He was put in removal proceedings.   "I couldn’t believe I couldn’t help him in any way," said Ramona.  "I thought because I was a US citizen I could help.  I couldn’t believe the law was that way."  Ramona had to take care of everything alone, with her newborn son.  On the weekends, she drove four hours each way with the baby, to visit Jacobo Sr. in detention.  Ramona worked, paid the bills, paid the rent, and paid a babysitter.  "I didn’t go out much.  It was too hard to see families together." 
    After two months in detention, Jacobo Sr. was in bad shape.  Something at the detention center bit his leg,and he was put in isolation.  He was in pain, confined, and it was nearly impossible to meet with a lawyer to discuss his deportation case.  He missed his baby.  Ramona recalled, "One time he called crying, and I knew I had to figure something out.  That’s when I found El Pueblo, and the Bond Fund."  The National Immigrant Bond Fund helped Ramona and Jacobo pay half their bond, and Jacobo came home to be his family while his case was pending in immigration court. 
      Paying the bond allowed Jacobo the opportunity for a fair hearing, and gave the family time to organize their lives.  In the end, the immigration judge ordered Jacobo to leave the United States.  He and his family left on August 4, 2009.   Ramona said, "I’ve never been to Mexico.  My father came to this country for better opportunities.  He doesn’t want me to go there.  I am doing this for my son, to keep the family together."

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Guadalupe spent 28 days in a Texas immigration detention center:  "I worked at Bianco (New Bedford, MA factory) from 7:30 in the morning until 11:00 at night.  When the immigrations agents raided the factory, they came in fast, yelling and cuffing people.  I just watched – what could I do?  They kept us for hours in the cold factory, and threw us food to try to eat with our hands cuffed.  They took away our cell phones and our personal items.  They put us on a bus to Ft. Devon, and took our fingerprints at 3:00 in the morning.  Then they bussed us again, this time to an airport.  Even on the plane, I didn’t know where I was going.  It was the immigration detention center in Port Isabel, Texas!  At the detention center, the immigration agents kept telling me to sign some papers.  They said I was crazy to fight my case, and that I would be stuck there a long time.  I worked for $1 a day cleaning the bathrooms to earn money to buy a calling card, and I called a friend for help.  The Bond Fund helped me pay the bond, so I could go home, find a lawyer, and have a fair hearing for my case."

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 Juan:  "Most of the people caught up in the raid at New Bedford were indigenous people from Guatemala.  We are 99% orphans – our parents were killed in the early 1980’s, when the Guatemalan government targeted indigenous people.  We came here because we heard about "human rights" in the United States.  I saw the TV news coverage of the raid, with images of people boarding the plane for Texas in shackles, and I couldn’t understand why Immigration would use these tactics."   Juan’s wife Juana G. spent eight days in a regional detention center until the Bond Fund helped them pay the bond.  Now it is easier for her to meet with her lawyer and prepare her case.

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