Hope, limbo, despair: Mexican family living in Minneapolis is deported after asylum bid denied

Dolls and stuffed animals peer out from shelves into the empty northeast Minneapolis apartment. Children's bikes and Hula-Hoops sit unused by the stairs. A "Happy Birthday" sign is draped across the entrance to the living room, marking the first birthday of the family's only American-born citizen: a boy named Leo. "Look at this," said Ry Siggelkow, gesturing around the living room where he once enjoyed gathering. "It's such a home, you know?"

But his friends — Pablo, Efi and their four children, who lived there for four years — abruptly departed this spring when the U.S. government sent them back to Mexico. Now, Siggelkow is grappling with how tenuous home can be. U.S. immigration judges have ordered 227,162 people deported since October 2023, leaving communities to feel the sometimes-painful ripple effects.

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Pablo and his wife, Efi, spoke with the Star Tribune from Mexico on the condition that their state and surname not be published in order to protect their safety. They live in a region of Mexico for which the U.S. Department of State has issued a "do not travel" advisory due to widespread crime and violence. In U.S. government documents, Pablo said his role as a local government commissioner in Mexico made him a target for criminal groups, including a cartel. He recounted returning from a community meeting in July 2019 when cartel members ambushed and beat him. Afterward, the family was terrified and stopped leaving the house. Efi said cartel members threatened her and said they would harm her eldest son.

In an asylum application, she wrote: "I fear that if we return to Mexico we will be hunted down by Cartel del Sur and physically persecuted because Pablo did not give into their threats and violence." Later in 2019, Pablo, Efi and their children fled to northern Mexico. In the border town of Juarez, Pablo befriended Siggelkow, then pastor of Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis, who was on a migrant outreach trip with other faith leaders. (Siggelkow is now director of the Leadership Center for Social Justice at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.) He encouraged Pablo to call if he ever needed a place to stay in America. After the family crossed the border that December, they wound up living with Siggelkow and his wife, Marcia, for a few months.

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Efi picked up cleaning and cooking jobs, and she served on the board of Pueblos de Lucha y Esperanza, an immigrant social justice nonprofit that Siggelkow co-founded. Pablo worked in construction and as a mover. They hired Minnetonka immigration attorney Steve Thal. The couple had an interview in October 2020 with an asylum officer to determine if they faced a "credible fear" of returning to Mexico. They received a negative decision, which meant their asylum case could not proceed. Thal said that, by law, the government must hold a hearing to review a decision within a week, but that didn't happen — for 1,297 days.

More..

https://www.startribune.com/they-became-like-family-one-deportations-impact-on-minneapolis-residents/600385743/

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I am really ambivalent about the border situation, don't know enough. But for a family who lived here for four yeas, making a living to be deported where their lives are in danger..