Houston Chronicle by Lomi Kriel June 30, 2019
For his third-grade graduation in May, 9-year-old Walter Escobar donned a purple bow tie and once again asked the question that had come to define his young life: When would his father come home to Pearland?
“Will Daddy be here for my next graduation?†he pleaded.
He had already missed Walter’s first- and second-grade years. Carmen, now 4, babbled nonstop and no longer toddled around in diapers. She was a little girl, not the baby her father had known. Rose Escobar hugged her earnest little boy, who in his father’s absence had vowed to be “man of the house.â€
“He wishes that he could be here with you, papito, you know that, right?†she said.
Two and a half years since their lives were upended, when Jose Escobar was arrested at a routine 2017 check-in with immigration authorities and deported to El Salvador in the middle of the night, Walter finally was granted his wish.
On Monday night, his father arrived at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport with a visa in hand — home at last, and for good this time.
“I have so much in my head right now,†said a visibly emotional Escobar. “I see it as I was living on pause mode, like someone pressed pause on the television, and right now I can press play again.â€
It was the end of a journey that the young family at times thought they would never survive — causing clumps of Rose’s thick, dark hair to fall out from stress — and all of it made them wonder: What, actually, had been the point?
After years of bureaucracy, the government in June agreed to grant Escobar a waiver for his deportation order and unlawful presence here and approved him for a visa as the spouse of an American. He can now apply for a green card, then citizenship. It was all a procedure that could have been completed with Escobar in the United States, but President Donald Trump’s administration didn’t respond to a legal petition to allow it, said Raed Gonzalez, the family’s immigration attorney.
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-father-Trump-deported-to-El-Salvador-14065211.php
