Army Officer’s Mother Deported as Time Runs Out on her Hope for a Miracle – By Kate Morrissey (The San Diego Union-Tribune) / Jan 3 2020
She prayed for a miracle for the past 30 days as media attention around her case escalated. But in the end, the mother of a U.S. Army intelligence officer was deported on Thursday to Tijuana.
The removal, based on previous deportations, had been scheduled for about a month, when her requests to be allowed to stay in the United States were denied. Despite that, Rocio Rebollar Gomez, 51, held out hope until the very last moment that the federal government would show her mercy and allow her to remain with her family.
“I’m only asking for an opportunity that they let me stay with my family, that they don’t separate us,” said Rebollar Gomez in Spanish shortly before her scheduled appointment to self-deport Thursday morning. “They’re separating me from my family forever. I don’t have a hope of seeing them after.”
Rebollar Gomez’s son, 2nd Lt. Gibram Cruz, 30, is not allowed to travel to foreign countries without getting permission from the military, a long and complicated process. Neither her youngest daughter, nor her grandchildren, have their passports yet.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency responsible for deportations, did not respond to a request for comment about her deportation in time for publication.
The agency previously told the Union-Tribune that Rebollar Gomez’s pending deportation was “in accordance with federal law.”
“The immigration laws of the United States allow an alien to pursue relief from removal; however, once they have exhausted all due process and appeals, they remain subject to a final order of removal from an immigration judge and that order must be carried out,” ICE said in mid-December.
Continue to article: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/01/03/army-officers-mother-deported-time-runs-out-her-hope-miracle.html
