No Mother's Day Thanks to INS
By Theresa Allyn, ColorLines RaceWire
Theresa Allyn never imagined that a family vacation would result in her mother’s deportation, and the breakup of her family. When Theresa graduated from college in 1999, her mother Nena Allyn applied for a passport so the two could travel together to Europe. The elder Allyn, who was born in the Phillipines, discovered to her surprise that the INS had an outstanding deportation order for her from 1975. Nena Allyn had raised her family in the U.S., working as a teacher and mentor. Unbeknownst to her, Allyn’s first husband had revoked her petition for citizenship when they annulled their marriage. She continued her paperwork when she remarried another American citizen with presumably no problem. Meanwhile, the INS had been sending requests for voluntary departure and deportation orders to a defunct address for years.
Allyn’s husband contracted a lawyer. Theresa, 26, began sending letters to politicians, news stations, and INS officers, but these efforts were largely ignored. On January 6, 2003, Nena Allyn was deported to the Phillipines after living in the U.S. for 30 years. The following is a letter that Theresa Allyn wrote to her mother Nena on Mother’s Day 2003 and shared with the audience at a Public’s Truth hearing in Alameda, California.
Dear Mom,
As I write this I am sitting in the laboratory, feeling proud of myself because I know you are so proud of me. I remember the day I decided to go to UC Berekley for graduate school. You knew one of the biggest reasons I chose the Berkeley Program is to be close to you and Dad. You are my whole family and the dearest thing to my heart. This grad-school thing is pretty tough, but everyday your love and support gives me discipline to do my best.
Tomorrow is Mother's Day. It will be the first one out of my entire 26 years that we will not be together to share the day. When I reflect on how this has happened, I am always shocked, angry, sad and very worried.
It has been four years since we were notified that something was wrong with your INS file–even after being married to Dad, a U.S. citizen, for nearly 30 years. It was an administrative oversight that none of us ever dreamed would cause a threat to our family.
It has been six months since we went to the INS for your new green card approval–where they instead dropped a bomb on our family when they threatened to deport you after nearly 30 years of building your life here.
It has been five months since that horror became reality and you were forced to quit your teaching job and leave your only family in the entire world to face a place that is now strange to you. Never mind the frantic appeals we made to reverse the order. Never mind your many years of service to our community as a teacher and mentor. I am incensed at how such a loving woman, with every right to be here, was made to feel like a criminal.
What surprises and sickens me now is why more people were so unfeeling. When I made a plea to a host of government officials for help to avoid this unjust disaster–I can hardly believe that we received a chorus of "I can't help yous" and "Your message will
be forwarded" responses. I repeatedly ask myself why this was largely ignored by so many people. Why it is acceptable for our government to tear a family apart?
It has been four months since Dad had to sell our home to pay for what seems like fruitless legal counsel. It has been four months since we had to give away our sweet little dog because the only place left to keep the remnants of our lives together is a storage unit made of cold cement walls.
It has been three months since Dad left from San Francisco International Airport to follow you to Manila. It has been three months that the two of you have been living in a hotel surrounded by strangers. I am so worried about Dad’s chronic lung problems and how he cannot breathe. I am worried about your health and the overwhelming fear you live with. I am worried about my own health because I find it sometimes impossible to face the insanity of this injustice.
It has been a lifetime since our lives have felt remotely normal. The three of us, you, me, and Dad, are overrun with sadness and fear. At a whim, a bureaucracy has torn our family apart. I do not feel safe anymore; I know you don’t either. A government that is supposed to be protecting us has terrorized the very heart of everything that I hold dear. How I felt happy and free before this tragedy seems like a distant memory.
You are a half a world away from me now. It seems once again that our fate lies at the mercy of a State Department officer. I ask myself–will they at least be nice to you? Will you be heard? Will they allow you to come home? These questions constantly run through my mind, yet I feel powerless to answer them.
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. It tears me apart that we can’t be together. I will go visit the Rose Garden that you love so much and pray that they will let you and Dad come home to me soon.
Love,
Theresa
© 2006 Applied Research Center
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