Update: Yessenia Ruano's attorney, Marc Christopher, released a statement Tuesday saying that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reviewing Ruano's request to delay her deportation.
Christopher says U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) confirmed it had received Ruano's T Visa application May 30. "In light of this receipt, ICE is now formally reviewing her stay," Christopher says.
"It is important to note that filing a stay of removal does not prevent ICE from carrying out a deportation order while the request is under review, and no specific timeframe is guaranteed for a decision. Nevertheless, Ms. Ruano, her legal advocates, local civic and the community remain hopeful that ICE will take into account the humanitarian gravity of her case," Christopher says.
Original story:
The Check-In is WUWM’s ongoing series about the rapidly changing immigration landscape in the U.S. This week we look into what we can learn from one specific story.
Milwaukee mother of two and MPS teacher’s aide Yessenia Ruano has been fighting her deportation order to her home country of El Salvador.
Last week, she was ordered to leave the U.S. by June 3. That’s despite her pending application for a visa for trafficking victims, known as a T visa. WUWM’s Jimmy Gutierrez talked about Yessenia Ruano’s case with her attorney, Marc Christopher.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Jimmy Gutierrez: You just talked with your client, Yessenia Ruano, before we jumped on this call. Where is her mind right now? How is she doing?
Marc Christopher: I think she's still trying to process everything. What people don't realize is Yessenia has a T visa that's pending, and a T visa is for people who have been the victims of human trafficking. And traditionally, what's happened before this administration is while it's pending you were able to remain in the United States to have your application decided. And here we're sending her back to the very country she's claiming that she's afraid of returning to. That's devastating for her, and it's devastating for her two girls and devastating for her husband. She’s going back to a country where two of her brothers were killed, where she faces being kidnapped. So it's a lot to take in.
The thing that is really striking is that it feels like a whole part of the city really took to Yessenia and her story. But for folks who don't know, who is Yessenia and how did she get to Milwaukee?
She is a wonderful human being. She is a teacher's aide. She is a caring mother. She is a wife. She is very active in her church. Overall, just has this incredibly optimistic disposition about her. She came to the United States approximately 14 years ago when she was fleeing violence in her home country. And two of her brothers were killed. She sought asylum in the U.S.
She ultimately had her case dismissed, but was allowed to remain here while she applied for what's called a T visa. And during this time is when we've seen a change in administration, and we went from a policy of allowing people to have this application run its course and have a decision on it, and then at the end of that decision if it was positive they get to stay, if it's negative then they have to go back.
But the current administration is not allowing people to get the decision. So they're sending them back to the country that they're claiming fear from.
How does she even get on ICE’s radar? No felony record, applied for this pending T visa, went about the whole process quote-unquote the right way. This is a visa that's historically been protected from deportation. So how does this happen?
Her case is somewhat unique in the sense that when she first attempted to enter the United States, she didn't affirmatively say, “I'm afraid of going back.” She was quickly processed in a very rushed manner and given something called an expedited removal. And an expedited removal has the same effect as a deportation.
So she was sent back immediately, she again faced the same type of danger, returned to the United States and this time she stated, right at the beginning when she came in, that she feared returning.
She was interviewed and an asylum officer determined that she had a credible fear of returning. So she was paroled in, but she was paroled in with the deportation order. She went to immigration court and the judge at that time indicated this may not meet the exact qualifications for a withholding claim. But [the judge said she sounded] like you have a strong T visa case and right now they're not deporting anyone. So we're not going to enter in a denial in your case, we're going to dismiss the case and allow you to pursue the T visa.
That of course was during the Biden administration where there was no real concern that she would be removed, that she would be able to file her T visa and let that run its course. And then of course, you had the election in November, and there's just been a 180-turn in policy on the way that these cases are handled.
And this has resulted in some people being very public and outspoken, even in the face of being really vulnerable with their status, which Yessenia was. And she herself took a very bold approach, publicly fighting court orders and potential deportation. Can we talk about her approach and what was so different about that, even in the face of this 180-degree policy change?
Most people are very scared to come forward and share their story because they feel vulnerable and they think it's going to make them susceptible to being targeted and deported. Yessenia took a very open and honest approach and allowed people into what her life is like, her daily life as a teacher, as a mother, as a member of the community, and it showed exactly who she was. And that's the wonderful human being you're reading about in the many articles and you're seeing on in the interviews. She's very genuine, she's very open, and that takes a lot of courage to do that.
And while she may end up being removed, her value has come in opening people's eyes to what the immigrant plight is like, how terrible it is in some Central American countries, why we need to listen to these stories, and to also demonstrate what an unbelievable positive impact immigrants have on our community.
You got to the point that she's also a mother and with a family. And her twin daughters both turned 10 [recently.] What does this order mean for her daughters and for her family?
It's tough. It means that they’re going to have to spend at least the next eight years of their life in a Third World country and be subject to violence, subject to poverty, subject to substandard education and medical care. That's going to be their life for the next eight years.
They're 10 years old and they're involved in so many extracurricular activities in school. One of them plays the violin, the other one's into arts and crafts, and so those opportunities that we U.S. citizens take for granted for our children, they're no longer going to have.
It was funny because we were talking before the hearing today and she was concerned about the process of getting their dog down to Central America should she have to go back, because there was no way that they would be able to get their daughters to go down there without their beloved dog.
So yeah, it's definitely a sobering day for us in the immigration world.
You had mentioned if she would have to go back, what comes next for her?
The only potential avenue she has left, and it's really a Hail Mary, is to file one last stay of removal, given the fact that she now has the receipts for her T visa. So, in other words, it's been formally accepted by the Department of Homeland Security. That's a new factor. That's something that wasn't available before when she had checked in. So there's a potential of filing a stay based off of that new factor. But to be honest with you, it's a real Hail Mary.
When do you hear back about the stay? Even as much of a Hail Mary as it is.
We asked that we be allowed time for that to be adjudicated, in other words decided later, but that could be a matter of a day, it could be a week, it could be two weeks.
She has a flight booked out of Chicago for [June 3] to go back to [El Salvador]. And right now she's planning on going.
