Woman Living In Evanston Church Hopes For Reunion With Daughter

EVANSTON, IL — The daughter of a widowed El Salvadoran asylum-seeker living in Evanston was due to be deported after the Supreme Court Monday denied a request to delay her removal. Her mother, Ana, came to the U.S. in 2015 after her husband was murdered by members of the notoriously brutal MS-13 gang. Thursday afternoon, an appeals board granted her a temporary stay from deportation, but her future remains uncertain.

Ana, 42, has resided at Lake Street Church in Evanston for the past two years with her two sons, aged 10 and 19, but her eldest daughter, 21-year-old Yesica, remains in a Houston detention center run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Their last names have been withheld due to safety concerns.) Yesica is not eligible for asylum because she previously has been voluntarily deported. Her lawyer sought a withholding of her removal, but federal courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals denied it.

Despite testifying that she was sexually assaulted by her uncle and threatened with murder by gang members, the appeals board found Yesica failed to establish that she could not find somewhere else to live in El Salvador, board member Roger Pauley wrote in the dismissal of her request.

"The applicant fears she will be harmed in El Salvador by gangs and her uncle. The applicant claims that gangs killed her father and that her uncle raped her," Pauley wrote. "We conclude that the immigration judge properly determined that the applicant did not establish that she could not internally relocate in El Salvador."

According to the board, Yesica did not meet the burden of showing there was nowhere she could go in El Salvador where she was not likely to be tortured.

"The applicant testified that her uncle found her at her aunt's house after he raped her. However, there is no requirement that the applicant relocate to a family member's home or area where her uncle would know the location of other family members' homes," Pauley wrote for the board.

But, according to Yesica's attorney Matthew Nickson, that was not her burden to meet.

"Everyone agrees she has established she was raped, and because rape is 'past persecution' under the law, it wasn't her burden to show that she could not relocate," Nickson said.

"The federal regulation with respect to withholding of removal shifts the burden with respect to showings about the reasonableness of relocation once the applicant for relief has demonstrated past persecution. In this case, the government got it wrong."

Yesica, her mother and her two brothers were all detained at the border in on June 17, 2015. Ana and the boys were allowed to stay, but Yesica was sent back to El Salvador on Sept. 3. Following the sexual assault by her uncle, she make another attempt at unauthorized entry into the United States in August 2016 and has been held in Texas ever since. ICE officials have denied a request for her to be released on a conditional bond, according to her lawyer.

Yesica's supporters argue that she was coerced into signing a voluntary departure form when she was first arrested, according to a May 1 Chicago Tribune report.

As a result of having previously been removed from the United States, she is not eligible for asylum and must meet a higher standard of proof to avoid being sent back to the country where she has citizenship. Re-entering the country after deportation is a felony, although she has not been criminally charged.

Ana told the Daily Northwestern that Yesica faced heightened threats due to her sexual orientation. She said gang members had targeted her daughter because she was a lesbian. When her father told them to stop, they murdered him in front of the family produce stand in San Salvador's central market.

“The only thing she faces if she goes back is death itself,” Ana said in Spanish, telling the paper she believed that federal immigration officials were well aware of the threats her daughter faced if she were sent back to El Salvador.

Evanston activists have been pushing for intervention from Illinois lawmakers, hoping that local elected officials might be able to pressure ICE to release Yesica while her appeals continue to be heard. More than a year likely will pass before a court resolves this matter. The offices of Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Jan Schakowsky did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

An ICE representative said the agency does not provide "advance notification of upcoming removal schedules" due to "operational security reasons." The immigration enforcement agency confirmed the Board of Immigration Appeals' emergency stay of removal and said Yesica remains in custody in Texas.

"Detaining and criminalizing those seeking refuge may feel good and seem to address the immediate problem, but it does not address a twisted capitalism favoring the those who are powerful and wealthy who only leave scraps for everyone else," said Rev. Jeff Zimmerman of Lake Street Church.

"Deporting Yesica and those like her will not bring significant change. Changing our economic system to one that is more just and equitable will. Our fate is intertwined with that of Yesica and her family."