While her family has been devastated, Cindy Garcia, the wife of deported Michigan dad Jorge Garcia, is vowing to not stay silent. "There will be no ICE coming to the door to try and deport me because I am a U.S. citizen,” she said. “There's nothing ICE can do to shut me up”:
In the days since, the Garcias have been swamped with media and appearance requests. They've appeared on or spoken to a wide range of outlets around the world, including CNN, Univision, "The View" and The Washington Post.
On Sunday, Cindy Garcia, 45, is set to be among the speakers at the Women's March Power to the Polls event in Lansing. She has also been invited to attend the State of the State address Tuesday in Lansing, and the State of the Union address Jan. 30 in Washington, D.C.
"God has always been in our lives, and he's giving me the strength right now to continue," Garcia told the Detroit Free Press. "I can lock myself up in my room, sit and cry with a bowl of ice cream, and waste my life away. But I don't gain anything from that, and neither do the people that need my help."
Garcia’s deportation became national news earlier this month, when the dad of two U.S. citizen kids was deported to Mexico after three decades in the U.S. and no criminal record. Heartbreaking images of the family saying goodbye at Detroit Metropolitan Airport went viral:
When she goes to bed exhausted, Garcia can't stop thinking about her husband.
"I sleep with two of his shirts because they still have his smell," she said. "I put them on me, like just lay them on me because they still have his smell of his cologne and stuff. ... It gives me comfort to where my anxiety doesn't flare up as bad."
Garcia was too old to qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protections, and the family spent more than $125,000 and many years trying to gain legal status for him. Their attempts were unsuccessful:
Now, Garcia sees it as her mission to speak up for others in her situation as the immigration debate heats up in Congress and the White House.
"I believe that we have to continue to fight, step up to the plate, " Garcia said. "The fight is not over. It's just beginning. I need all the help we can get. I am one person, but we need the Dreamers (DACA recipients) to have a way to pass the citizenship. Even though it doesn't affect my husband anymore, I'm still here to represent the Latinos, because I feel that they don't have a voice, and I do, because I am a U.S. citizen."
For now, the family communicates with Jorge through messaging apps and FaceTime, but with an appointment at the Mexican Consulate still 18 months away, any sort of chance at family reunification could still be a long time away. For now, Cindy vows to continue to share his story:
On Sunday, when Cindy Garcia speaks at the Women's March in Lansing, she hopes to send a message to the U.S. about her husband and the plight of immigrants and Latinos.
If she could speak to Trump, Garcia said she would say:
"I want you to realize that what you said is one thing, and what you've done is another," Garcia said. "Because you said you were going to deport the criminals back to their original country: the rapists, the people who bring drugs into the country, and obviously my husband has always done the right thing.
"... How can you send someone back who's not a criminal?" she said. "I want an answer."
Stories like that of the Garcia family are happening with alarming frequency under the Trump administration, now that ICE has been unshackled. This is a fact the administration is trying to hide by erasing the faces of real people with fake stats. They can try to continue to lie and distort, but they cannot silence voices like Cindy’s.