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A father's pain
BY PETRE WILLIAMS-RAYNOR [email protected]
Sunday, March 07, 2010
AT 40 years old, he is a man in anguish over the loss of the family he had to leave behind in the United States when he was deported to Jamaica in 2008.
"It is killing me not being with my children. This sentence (deportation) is like death to me. To take me from my children... I feel like I have been locked up and have been given a sentence of death," said the father of five, who this past week shared his story with the Sunday Observer on condition of anonymity. "I am not saying I have not done wrongs in my life, but I don't deserve this."
He recalled that when the authorities came to get him, he was in the process of taking his youngest son, age 13, to school.
"They said 'Just step out the car, you know who we are'. I told my son, 'don't move'. They took him back into the house to his mother," he said. "(My wife told me later) that he came inside the house, laid down on the floor and started screaming 'Why did they take my daddy?' He was just screaming and crying hysterically. She couldn't calm him down."
His youngest child, a little girl aged five, was not as affected. For the first several months he was in detention, the child thought he was away at church.
"This is what she reflected in her mind. When she went to church she would tell people, 'My daddy went away to church, he will be back soon'," he said.
The little girl soon caught on that her 'daddy' would not be returning any time soon. As for his youngest son, things are getting worse.
"I was talking to my wife last night (Tuesday) and she said I think I am going to have to get him back into therapy because it is having a traumatic effect on him. All of this takes money that we don't have. She says my children really want to see me," the father said.
But his story did not begin with his deportation, which came as a consequence of his not being in the country legally. The man, who is married to the mother of his two youngest children, said he was taken to the US at age five or six by his father. But no sooner did he get there, his father began to physically abuse him. As a result, he was taken into state care where he remained, on and off, for the next 10 years.
He later returned to live with his father until he was 21-years-old, when he was deported, having run afoul of the law over a drug charge. While in custody, the authorities discovered that he had no papers. He was offered bail, which his father -- who had failed to ensure he got his green card and citizenship -- refused to post.
"When I told him about the bail, he got into a rage and said he is not putting up a house or anything like that. He said I should let them send me back to Jamaica and he would find a way to get me back," he said.
He was deported, but after only about four months he was back in the States using a new name. He assumed the name of a US soldier, and it was several years before local authorities discovered what he had done and brought him up on charges. He was given two years probation for that offence and went back to using his own name.
But his troubles were just getting started.
Immigration authorities soon discovered that several years earlier he had also assumed the name of a soldier that had deserted the army.
He was subsequently taken into custody, and deported for the second time in 19 years.
Today, he is desperately trying to ensure his children have a better life.
"As a problem child, you don't get to (realise) your full potential. I know I could have gone to college, and I am not blaming anyone for that. But if you don't have the proper guidance, the proper support, it can't happen. And that is why I need to be there for my boy children and for my girl children. I didn't have a mother there; I had a father who was not there," he said. "I am swimming to stay afloat, trying to keep my children from becoming statistics. My children, my family, if I am not careful, will become statistics in the US where they become drug users or some sort of criminal."
The distressed father noted that there are days when he finds living daunting.
"I left here when I was five. I am just coming back here. I live here with my mother. I am just meeting her for the second time in my life," he said. "I wash my clothes now by hand. To someone that's been living here, that is nothing. But my hands have blisters on them. And it is not that I don't want to do it, but it tells you the culture shock."
And as he adapts to life on the island, his family struggles in the US.
"I bought a house there. I was living with my children and my wife. She is right now going through extreme hardship. My (youngest) son is going through what you call withdrawal because of this whole situation. He saw the police come and take me in front of his eyes... He couldn't understand what daddy did to come and take him," he said.
The father added that his son used to be talkative and bubbly.
"He was a child that would open up and speak to me about whatever it is that was bothering him. But he is not talking... because of this effect of me not being their in his presence. It is just creating a stigma in his mind. He tells his mother all the time, 'Mom, if dad was here we wouldn't have to stand out in the cold at the bus stop. If dad was here, we wouldn't have to wait on the man to come and deal with the flood in the basement," he said.
As for his five-year-old, he said: "You wouldn't believe what is happening to her. She is constantly asking, 'Where is daddy and why isn't daddy coming home'."
Meanwhile, despite his brush with the law in his youth, the 40-year-old said he has long turned a new leaf.
"I paid my dues, I paid my taxes and for doing that, this is the reward I get. They took me away from my children. All I have to communicate with them is a phone. So you know how hard that is for me. When my children were in my presence, it was like gold to them. They knew they had a father they could reach out to," he said.
Now there is only stress.
"My mortgage was US$1,300 a month. They (the bank) gave me the mortgage based on my income. My wife only makes US$1,200 a month. I was making US$50,000 to US$80,000 a year. (After I left) the house was put into foreclosure. I had to call my wife and tell her, 'Listen, you need to contact this company (and) let them know that I am not there. Let them find a way to readjust the mortgage. They wouldn't do it. So she went through several months of not paying the mortgage," he added.
Luckily they still have a roof over their heads, but there are other concerns.
"I have to send money to my children up in the States. Do you know how hard it is to work to save just US$100 to send to them? I am only making like J$5,000. I have to work overtime to get money together to muster up US$100 just to send, to say 'See what you can do'," he said, clearly frustrated.
Recently, he said he called home and spoke with his five-year-old, who related that her mother had been unable to buy her favourite cereal.
"It hurt me when my daughter say that she is unable to have Cheerios," the man said, as he broke down crying.
His other children from a previous relationship -- a son, 19, a daughter, 21, and another son, 22 -- are in no less need of him.
"When I was there, I valued the thought of education and I said to them, 'Listen, your education is the key to your success'. This is what I would preach to them... Now my oldest son just came out of a boys' home and the streets is training him. His mother just had a nervous breakdown," the father said. "This all happened within the three years (I have been away from them). He (the oldest son) was going to school before. His sister was in school. Now the two of them are not in school."
While not averse to being reunited with his family in Jamaica, the father said that was easier said than done.
"If I had the ways and means, I would do it. Do you know how hard it was to work in America, to remain out of prison, to have good equity, to have good credibility? You don't just get (good credit) approval. I built that, and it didn't happen for me overnight," he said. "And now they can say to me, move your family to Jamaica with you. I would do that but how am I going to provide for my children when they get here? Who is going to provide food and shelter for them? If my mother was not here, I would be suffering; I don't know what I would be doing."
Until he is reunited with his family, they all suffer together.
"It is like a piercing in the heart this thing that has happened to us. This is how painful this is. I was speaking to her (my wife) one night and she said to me 'I miss you so much, I didn't know how much you were to us until after this happened'. After this has happened, there is nothing that a person can do to me that is as painful," he said.
"I am scared to death of what is going on in my life now. My children need me and it is like no-one is really listening, no-one is really caring. I am a walking dead man right now, let me tell you. I am dead without my children and my wife," he added.