An immigrant mom desperate to stay in the Big Apple with her American citizen hubby and three young kids was just weeks from becoming a permanent resident but now fears she’ll get deported at any moment and torn from her family.
“I don’t feel safe,” said Karina Bailon, 32, of Queens, who has been married to a naturalized U.S. citizen for four years.
“Right now, I am afraid that I can be arrested at any time and be taken away from my children. It could happen anywhere.”
Bailon recently applied for a green card, hoping that would clear the way for her to remain here legally.
She even got a judge to nullify an old deportation order and schedule an interview on Sept. 13 with the U.S. consulate in her native Mexico as the final step toward citizenship.
But ICE delivered a blow to her case, appealing that judge’s decision and making clear that the deportation order for her in 2001 — issued when she was just 15 — was all they needed to boot Bailon out of the country.
“I just want immigration officials to follow the law and do what’s right,” she said in Spanish. “Now I live in fear.”
Source: NY Post
