One Mother's Love

Laura Wood Roldan was visibly pregnant with her first son went she tried to cross the Rio Grande in an inner tube. If she had been successful in crossing the border that time, perhaps she could have been living her life with her husband and two little daughters, happily ever after.
But, Wood got caught, went back to Ameca, a small pueblo in Los Altos de Jalisco, and started planning another way to make it back to the United States. Her second attempt to cross would turn out to be both a blessing and a curse.
Like many of her friends and neighbors, Wood was desperate to forge a better life north of the border. In this region of Jalisco nearly everyone has a family member working on the other side, legal or otherwise.
“Where I come from there is no future, especially if you have no degree,” she said. “It’s impossible to take care of a child. You have to buy formula, clothes, and diapers. It never ends.”
In 2001 she successfully crossed at a border crossing in Texas with a group of other migrants. When an immigration officer approached the group and asked for their identification, she says she simply told them a false name and went on her way to start building her dream.
She eventually made her way north, to Omaha, Nebraska, a city with a growing enclave of Jaliscan migrant workers. There she met and fell in love with Joe Wood, a blue collar, meat and potatoes kind of American. They fell in love got married, and Melissa was born shortly afterward. Around the time 18-month-old Vanessa was born, Joe and Laura decided to hire a lawyer in order to start the process to make Laura a legal citizen. She would have been able to find better work and perhaps arrange for her son, Eduardo to join her new family in the States.
They arranged all of their proper documents, packed up the two little girls and their wedding album and headed down to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez.
Most undocumented immigrants who marry U.S. citizens are required to return to their home country and await a visa back to the United States. In many cases people like Laura, with families that depend on them, are granted hardship waivers that allow them to stay in the U.S. while they are waiting for their papers to go through. However, immigration officials allege that during the interview Laura admitted to assuming the identity of a U.S. citizen and to using a fabricated birth certificate to verify her identity.
Laura says she did use another person’s name, but that she never presented any kind of document.
“I had nothing with me when I crossed,” she said. “Besides, how am I going to pretend to be an American when I don’t even know what it means to be one?”
According to immigration law, migrants who slip by authorities by making their way through the Arizona desert or floating across the Rio Grand would be eligible for such a waiver, but immigrants like Laura who allegedly presented a false identity face serious consequences.
“I don’t know that a lot of people understand the consequences of presenting false documents but unfortunately its common,” said Marilu Cabrera a spokeswoman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “If you make a false claim that’s fraud and you will be denied any sort of waiver.”
Not only was Laura denied the waiver, but she was also banned from ever returning to the United States. Upon hearing this news Joe and Laura were faced with the hear-wrenching task of deciding the fate of their two young daughters. In the end they reasoned that Vanessa and Melissa would be better off staying with their father in Nebraska, the only home they had ever known.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday the Wood family traveled to Ameca to get Laura settled in with her sister’s family and to say their goodbyes.
Up until Joe, Melissa, and Vanessa boarded their flight to Ciudad Juarez, Laura instinctively carried out her motherly duties. Vanessa needed to be breastfed, Joe kept misplacing the flight details. The sadness of the group was palpable and Laura tried to keep the mood light. She smiled at Vanessa, a toddler with her father’s bright blonde hair and striking blue eyes.
“Everyone in Ameca teases me and says that I kidnapped her,” she said with a forced smile.
Joe, on the other hand, was not able to contain his feelings as he and his girls approached security.
“I can’t believe I have to do this,” he said. “When somebody does what they think is right and one system can rip a family apart…I’m not even proud to say I’m an American.”
The family had their final embrace and after she handed the diaper bag to Joe, her American daughters and husband disappeared through security. She stayed behind with her sister, nieces and cousin from Ameca.
She maintained a brave front until she was asked how she was able to stay so strong during such a hard time. At his question her tight smile instantly melted away and her face finally looked more like that of a mother who just said goodbye to her children.
“I can’t.”