Carol, the Illegal Alien

The following includes the real laws as they are enforced.  "Carol" is a composite of several individuals who are detrimentally affected by current immigration legislation.  One hopes that the gentle reader will forgive the use of a composite, being that it protects the identities of more than one decent human being who got screwed over.


Carol is an undocumented immigrant.  She entered the United States legally in 1992 as a 22-year-old student at a major university in the Southeast.  Carol did well in her studies, and married her first husband, a Mathematics major at the same school, in 1993.

At the time they were under the impression that marriage provided automatic permanent residency in the United States.  Carol and her first husband did not file the appropriate paperwork in 1993.  Her student visa expired with her graduation from the university in 1994.

In 1995, Carol and her first husband split, a couple of months before their second anniversary.  She caught him balancing equations with an 18-year-old intern from Tuscaloosa, and neither one had any clothes on.

She continued on a career path at a restaurant chain in a major Sun Belt city.  Carol eventually remarried, to Mike, who hated math, and refused to balance his checkbook.  They have two boys, Dylan and Josh, ages 13 and 10. Carol managed to ascend to the post of district manager with the restaurant chain when complications arose.

In 2007, Carol went to renew her driver's license.  As a result of the Real ID laws passed after 9/11, Carol was asked for more documentation of her residency.  As can be imagined, she didn't have any, or know that she had needed any.

Carol's husband, Mike, was unaware that there was any complication with her residency status in the United States.  Upon discovery of issues with Carol's documentation, they consulted with an attorney about normalizing her status.

Actually, they consulted with more than one.  Several requested fees up front, only to tell them that her case was next to impossible to normalize, once they got a hundred and fifty bucks or so.  A couple made promises that there would be no problem in arranging her documentation, demanding fees in the thousands of dollars beyond the thousands of dollars needed for the appropriate government applications.

Only one such attorney was necessary to break the illusion that he could do any better than the attorney who told them, for free, that there was nothing he could do.

The next year, a participant in E-Verify absorbed Carol's employer.  Carol's 12 years of exemplary work, commendation and competence vaporized overnight.  A large chunk of her family's income vaporized as well. So did their ability to continue to make their mortgage payments, car payments, and provide a better upbringing for their kids.

They are now living in a rented mobile home near Mike's parents.  The kids have been taken out of their quality suburban school district, and now face the free lunch lines and the methamphetamine addiction issues common to rural America.  The boys now exhibit behavior issues due to the upheavals in their lives.

Carol's husband does the best he can, but his job requires frequent travel.  They manage to keep a roof and lights, but her husband has the nagging concern that his telephone will ring with the call that his wife has been removed from their home.  They joke that the employment options which would keep him closer to home involve such a drastic pay cut that he would be forced to sell one of the kids.

A large component of Carol's family no longer resides in her native country.  Some are in Canada, others in Europe.  A few live in the United States, some around the sun belt city where she settled in the nineties.  Some are legal, others not so much.

If Carol is caught without papers, she will be returned to her native country for a minimum of ten years for remaining in the United States for more than 180 days without the appropriate papers.  That means that she faces a minimum of ten years before she can reapply for legal readmission to the United States.

Neither her husband nor her children speak her native language, so relocation is not an option for them.

There are those who want others to conflate the face of undocumented immigration with a tiny subculture of thugs, young men and women of ill will.  But the truth is very different, filled with men and women like Carol and her family.  Before considering the one in a hundred with evil in his heart, the ninety-nine like Carol are deserving of our compassion, our understanding, and our embrace as a nation of immigrants.