Life upended for Utah family
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No Comments [ Add Comment ]By Lynze Wardle
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau lwardle@standard.net
lwardle@standard.net
L
AYTON -- Three weeks have passed, but Rosemary Hansen believes her young grandson is still traumatized from seeing his mother arrested by immigration officials.
"Xander asks every day where his mom is," Hansen said, "Yesterday, he finally said, 'The police took my mom.' "
Ana Hansen, a Honduras native, was arrested Jan. 14 at her Sugarhouse home. While Rosemary Hansen cares for Xander, 21/2, and Cosette, 8 months, at her Layton home, son Chad Hansen works and searches for a way to reunite his family.
Chad, 25, and Ana Hansen, 32, were married in 2002, one year after Ana came illegally to the U.S. from Honduras. Hansen said he knew that his wife was an illegal immigrant when they began dating, but thought he would be able to help her to secure legal residency.
"I said, 'All right, that's fine. I think we should be able to work something out.' "
It is nearly impossible, however, for people living illegally in the U.S. to gain citizenship, said Arnold Gardner, a Salt Lake City attorney who specializes in family and business immigration law. To obtain a permanent visa or "green card," illegal immigrants must return to their homeland, he said.
If they have lived in the U.S. for more than six months, they will not be allowed back into the country for three years. If they have resided in the country for more than a year, they cannot get a visa for 10 years.
People can waive that waiting period if they can prove their exile is causing extreme hardship to a parent or spouse who is a permanent resident, Gardner said, but receiving a waiver is rare.
Ana Hansen is one of 75,000 to 100,000 illegal immigrants in Utah and one of more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., according to a 2005 estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C.
Many feel that entering the country illegally is their only option, said Alyssa Williams, immigration attorney for Catholic Community Services of Utah.
If a person is sponsored by a relative or boss who is a U.S. citizen, it usually takes 10 to 15 years to gain U.S. citizenship, Williams said.
Without a sponsor, it can take decades. Many never receive a permanent visa.
"(Illegal immigrants) have a pretty clear idea what they are going to be facing once they get here," she said. "It is just that they're desperate and that they don't really have a lot of other options."
For Ana Hansen, the decision to come illegally to the U.S. was an attempt to reunite her family. She spent most of her childhood in a Catholic convent in Honduras, Chad Hansen said, and did not live with her mother until she was 12. Her father left the family when she was a child.
Ana Hansen gave three scholarships to U.S. colleges away to her older brothers, Chad Hansen said, in an effort to use kindness to bring the family together. Her mother eventually immigrated legally to the U.S., but none of her family members would serve as her sponsor.
"No one asked for her, no one did anything," he said.
The Hansen family believes Ana Hansen will be deported before mid-February, but doesn't know the exact date.
During their marriage, the Hansens contacted local lawmakers, tried to start petitions and even hired lawyers in an attempt to secure citizenship for Ana.
Chad Hansen said they lost thousands of dollars to a scam artist who promised to help. "There is a certain point where you want something so bad that you'll do anything."
He said he did not collect the receipts and names needed to prosecute the person. Hansen said he believes immigration officials may have been tipped off to Ana's location by a disgruntled friend of her family who lost money to the same scam artist.
Chad Hansen said he hopes to make a home for his family soon, in the seaside Honduran town of San Pedro Sula. When he can secure passports for his children, he will take them to live with their mother while he continues working in the U.S. Although Chad Hansen can visit his family in Honduras, it is very difficult for an American to get citizenship there, Rosemary Hansen said. He plans to pursue waivers and will consider relocating the family to Mexico or Canada, although gaining citizenship in those countries is also difficult.
In a small way, Chad Hansen said, Ana's arrest has brought a sense of relief. His wife worked as a schoolteacher in Honduras, but could not drive or get a job in the U.S. for fear of having her illegal status discovered.
"She was independent for such a long time, but here she felt trapped."
With the constant fear of discovery behind them, the family can begin to plan for the future, he said.
For Rosemary Hansen, however, the prospect of having her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren move thousands of miles away has been devastating.
"I cried for days," she said. "My husband assures me that whereever they end up, that's where we'll move."
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