“One year I don’t see my mother. I’m an only child, she doesn’t have anyone else. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to think.” – Josette

Sherin Innis came to the United States in 2003 with her husband, Vernon, and two children. The New York City Department of Education recruited Vernon from Guyana, where he was a professor at a respected university, to become a teacher in a city public school. In return, the DOE promised the family citizenship. But when Vernon died unexpectedly, the family’s chance at U.S. citizenship died with him.

“I have a right to stay in America, to live here, because that was promised to us.” – Sherin Innis

The story of the Innis family is just one of thousands of stories about immigrants in the U.S. who face hurdles in becoming citizens. In 2009, the United States deported 387,790 people. That’s a 5 percent increase over 2008, and more than triple the amount of deportations in 2001.

“I have no idea what I would do back in Ecuador… My only family there is a brother, who I lost contact with years ago.” – Victor Peñafiel

Many of these families have nowhere to return to. Some immigrated to the U.S. in order to find a better life, while others did so to send money home and provide a better life for their families abroad. But one aspect of U.S. immigration policy often overlooked is the affect it has on families.

“I’m confused and I don’t know what to do… I only think of how to help my husband and how to take care of the children, both things at the same time.” – Nube Shirley Pullola

The Distant Relatives project is an attempt to look at the consequences of that policy. Each story is a unique spin on a similar theme: families separated by immigration.

“I want to give them the best that I can, I want to give them the things that I didn’t have.” – Luis Toapanta

While all of the stories contained on this website involve people from different backgrounds, the central theme remains the same:

“I actually was looking for my American dream.” – Ana

Sherin Innis – Guyana from Distant Relatives Project on Vimeo.

By Jose Bayona and Jonathan Camhi

Sherin Innis’ family was broken apart by the stress of the immigration process. Her husband, Vernon Innis, died from a stress-related brain aneurism in 2008. Doctors told her it was stress-related. She is convinced the stress came from her husband’s efforts to keep his family in New York despite broken promises from the New York City Department of Education while trying to keep his family in this country.

Vernon Innis was recruited to New York City in 2003 by the New York City Department of Education to help alleviate a teacher shortage. DOE promised Vernon, who was a professor at the Georgetown University in Guyana, a teaching job in a city public school.

DOE said that if Vernon took the job the city would sponsor him and his family for permanent resident status and eventual citizenship. Vernon was one of more than 500 teachers hired the DOE from various Caribbean nations from 2001 to 2003 – when the economy was better and the city needed more teachers.

“But the DOE never fulfilled that promise,” Sherin Innis said. To sponsor Vernon and his family for permanent status, the DOE first had to give Vernon a teaching contract. Sherin says Vernon never got that contract, but the DOE put him to work as a teacher anyway. Instead, Sherin says, DOE gave him a working visa for three years that he renewed in 2006, which allowed the whole family to stay here until 2009.

The working visa could not be renewed a second time, so by 2008, a year before it was scheduled to expire and the family would be deported. Vernon became increasingly worried and agitated that the DOE still would not give him the promised contract, which would in turn pave the way to permanent residency.

In 2008, after five years in New York City and still no contract from the DOE, Sherin remembers Vernon was worried about the family’s immigration status. His working visa could not be renewed for a third time, and the threat of having to move back to Guyana the next following year loomed over the family.

On the evening of April 19, 2008 the family was relaxing in their three-bedroom apartment in Queens. Their two sons, Emmanuel and Samuel, were playing computer games while Vernon was watching television. Vernon started to complain of a headache and then started to vomit. Sherin called an ambulance, but by the time that the ambulance arrived her husband was lying on the floor with his eyes staring into space.

“My sons were very destroyed. Their dad, their hero, just laying there on the floor, there was nothing they could do,” she said.

Her husband was taken to the hospital and put on life support, but it wasn’t enough. A brain scan showed massive bleeding and he died the next day from a brain aneurism.

After her husband’s death Sherin received a phone call from Helen Conrad, a lawyer assigned by the DOE to oversee the immigration process for Caribbean teachers. She informed Sherin that because Vernon died their family would not be able to get sponsorship to stay in the U.S. “When your husband died, your status died with him,” Conrad told Sherin.

Sherin and her sons stayed in New York City on a visitor’s visa after her husband’s death. In 2009, she received a working visa when she started to work as tutor at Touro College. Her visa will expire in February 2012, when she will have to move back to Guyana with her two sons.

For now, Sherin and her two sons had to move into a room in a house with three other families. The children sleep in the bedroom while she sleeps on the floor. During the winter she says it is too cold for her to go in the kitchen.

Sherin has a degree in accounting, and taught for many years at Queens College in Guyana, the most prestigious university in the country. She says she is fully capable of taking the teaching position that the DOE was going to give to her husband. If she gets the contract, then the Innis family can apply for the permanent status that the DOE promised them nearly eight years ago.

“I have a right to stay in America, to live here, because that was promised to us,” Sherin said. “It’s not fair, it’s not right. He came here, you promised him something, he died, and he had a family. It should pass on to the family.”

Sherin says that her family gave up everything they had in Guyana to come to the United States, and there is nothing for her there if the family has to go back. Since Vernon died, Sherin says, the only way her family can stay together is here in America, where at least her sons can visit their father’s resting place.

“We came here as a family, and he died. He’s buried here. At least give them the opportunity to visit his burial place,” she said.

Victor Peñafiel – Ecuador from Distant Relatives Project on Vimeo.

By Jose Bayona and Jonathan Camhi

Every Thursday afternoon Victor Peñafiel has an appointment at the Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) office in downtown Manhattan. Peñafiel, who is an undocumented immigrant, has an active deportation order from ICE, but he hasn’t been told to leave the country yet.

Every Thursday he wonders if it will be his last visit to the ICE office. His wife and three children – all U.S. citizens – hope that it is not.

Peñafiel, 32, came to the United States from Ecuador in 2000 and has been working construction since then. In the summer of 2004 he volunteered to go to work in Vermont, where he was pulled over by the police for a routine traffic stop.

They asked him for his license and his immigration documents. He told the police he was undocumented and they arrested him. The Vermont Police Department transferred him to ICE custody and the next day he was sent to an immigration detention facility near the Canadian border. Two days later he was released and told to appear in immigration court in Connecticut.

“I never showed up at the immigration court,” Peñafiel said. “I didn’t have the money to pay for a lawyer to go with me.”

With the help of a non-profit immigration assistance organization in New York, Peñafiel hired a pro-bono lawyer and tried to get his case moved to an immigration court in Manhattan. He was unsuccessful, and the Connecticut court issued a deportation order.

“In December last year, ICE officers knocked on my apartment’s door in Queens at 5:45 in the morning. They showed me an arresting order and took me to 26 Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan,” Peñafiel said. “At that time, my wife was eight months pregnant with our third child.”

ICE released him later that day without any explanation, Peñafiel said. At the moment of his release, an ICE officer realized Peñafiel’s passport was expired and asked him to bring a valid passport in the next few days. In the meantime, ICE installed an electronic surveillance device around his ankle, he said.

“A week later I brought them a new passport and they took the bracelet off my ankle,” he said.

Peñafiel currently has a pro bono lawyer working on his case with the help of Make the Road New York, a community-based organization that offers a range of assistance for immigrants and others. He is trying to get a stay on his deportation order, but his chances are slim, he said.

“I have no idea what I would do back in Ecuador,” Peñafiel said. “My only family there is a brother, who I lost contact with years ago.”

Peñafiel still works in construction to support his wife and three children, ages 7, 3 and 3 months. If he is deported back to Ecuador, he said, his wife and children would most likely stay here.

“I want them to have a better education and a better future,” Peñafiel said.

Nube Shirley Pullola – Ecuador from Distant Relatives Project on Vimeo.

By Jose Bayona and Jonathan Camhi

Nube Shirley Pullola dreams of going to college one day and getting a degree in education. As an undocumented immigrant, she wants to do it for herself and her four children of 8, 6, 4 and 2 years old, so in the future they can follow her example.

But now that her husband Carlos Alvarez, also an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador, is in custody at an immigration detention facility in Seattle and facing deportation, her dream is vanishing.

If Alvarez is deported to Ecuador, Pullola – also from Ecuador – has to decide if she goes back there with her children – all of them US citizens – or stay here so they get better educational opportunities in the future.

On April 22, Alvarez was returning to New York from a visit to a friend in Seattle, Washington. He was arrested at the airport when Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) officers asked for his documents at the boarding gate.

“They asked him for his passport,” Pullola said. “When they saw the Ecuadorian passport, they asked him for his visa or permanent residence. He didn’t have anything to show and was sent to an immigration facility.”

Pullola, who has been in this country for 11 years, also said her husband didn’t think it was risky to fly to Washington State even though he was undocumented.

Now she is taking care of their children for herself at their home in Queens, and trying to help her husband to avoid deportation with the help of Make the Road New York, a community-based organization. “We don’t have money to pay for his $10,000 bond. Neither do we have money to pay the $4,000 that an immigration lawyer asked for taking his case.”

Pullola says that she had to tell their children that her father is detained after they were persistently asking were he was. “The worst time of the day is at bedtime when we wait for him to call. My only hope is that he could call collect and say good night to them,” she said.

Alvarez has been living and working in the United States for 17 years, Pullola says. He worked for a demolition company for several years, including on the Ground Zero cleanup.

Five years later, he started showing signs of respiratory illness and other health problems such as heartburn, sleep apnea, depression and nervous breakdowns. He was working as a cab driver when he went to visit the friend in Seattle and was arrested.

“He is currently in medical treatment and seeing a therapist twice a month,” Pullola said. “I don’t know how long he’s going to be detained and without seeing his doctors. His mental health is getting worse.”

Since he didn’t have a contract signed with the cab company, he is not entitled to any benefits. Pullola cannot get a job because she doesn’t have a working permit.

“I’m confused and I don’t know what to do,” Pullola said. “I only think of how to help my husband and how to take care of the children, both things at the same time.”

By Vincent Trivett

Luis Toapanta wants to move back to Ecuador to be with his two children, his wife, and his parents.

Unfortunately, if he were to leave New York, Luis will no longer afford to send his children to school. He says that no matter how much he works in Ecuador, he would not be able to provide for his family as well as he would if he stayed apart from them.

“I want to give them the best that I can, I want to give them the things that I didn’t have,” he says.  I am starting to think that the love of a father can be much more valuable to them than material things.”

Luis’s situation is not at all uncommon in the migrant worker community.  Workers like Luis leave their families behind in their home countries to provide money for education and necessities.  Many of them work seven days per week to maximize the amount that they can send back through remittance agencies.

Most migrant workers that live in rich countries like the United States, Europe, and the Gulf states earn comparatively little compared to natives in those countries. Many of them work seven day per week to maximize the amount that they can send.  The price that they pay to send the money varies greatly depending on the amount of competition in the corridor.  In many cases, the immigrants themselves pay more because they are unaware of other options, or they are uneasy about patronizing traditional financial institutions such as banks.

Transnational remittances were a negligible piece of the world economy until the late 1990s, but globalization and relaxed immigration laws in countries like the United States have led to tremendous upward trend.  The World Bank estimates that migrants around the world remitted $414 billion dollars in 2009. The vast majority went to developing countries.

Remittances to different countries are charged different prices depending on competition and the state of financial infrastructure in the receiving countries.  In corridors with high levels of migration such as the U.S.-Mexico corridor, there is more competition and lower prices.

The recipients also lose money when their money is converted into the local currency. The main reason for high remittance prices in some areas, according to World Bank analyst Kai Schmitz, is not necessarily that the agencies charge more than they should, though they do in some cases where there is little competition on one corridor. The main reason for the high prices mainly has to do with infrastructure and a lack of transparency.

“In many cases in poor countries where remittances are received the banks have poor systems,” says Schmitz. “Sub-Saharan Africa is some of the poorest countries.  They need the remittances more, but the migrants pay the highest prices.”

Another problem that drives up the cost of remittances is that in some cases, the remittance agencies arrange exclusive agreements with banks in developing countries, though this persists in some countries where very few banks operate, it has been outlawed in many.

Very often, the remitters themselves are in fact satisfied with the service.  A 2009 survey by New York’s Neighborhood Economic Development Project found that well over half of remitters surveyed were “very satisfied” with their experiences

Analysts say that the high rate of satisfaction has more to do with a lack of information than genuinely good service.

The largest share of remittances comes from migrants living in the United States, but there are still very few consumer protection measures for remitters themselves.  The PATRIOT Act of 2001 included a few regulations for international payments. These provisions are mostly aimed at preventing the funding of terrorist activity, but a measure of transparency came with it.  Remittance companies are now required to provide customers with a receipt showing the exact amount that they were charged, and the amount that the recipient will receive.

Remitances for economic development

Remittances from expatiates, like foreign direct investment, are one of the principal sources of foreign currency for developing countries.  In some countries such as the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Jamaica and the Philippines, remittances amount to a huge portion of gross domestic product.

According to World Bank estimates, if just the price of sending remittances were to be reduced by just 5 percent, another $16 billion dollars would be going into the pockets of the receivers.  A reduction in fees could free up more money for development.

The San Francisco-based Transnational Institute for Grassroots Action (TIGRA) is trying to address the lack of development assistance from remittance companies and the lack of legal consumer protection for remitters.

“Sending money hardly costs anything and they charge a lot,” says Francis Capoltura, TIGRA’s founder. “There’s an inherent sense of unfairness in the whole issue. The remittance industry is depending on low wage migrant workers all over the world, generating huge profit margins based on the sacrifices that people have to do to send money.”

TIGRA’s Remit4Change program gives accreditation to banks and remittance agencies that charge fair prices for sending money and show a commitment to reinvestment that addresses the root causes of migration. When a remitter sends money through a company that participates in Remit4Change, he or she can choose a development project to funnel a small portion of the remittance charge to.

One project that TIGRA helped set into motion directed a small amount of remittance agency profits into helping rural Filipino women start a business to help sustain themselves.  The women make and sell traditional fishing nets made from coconut husks.  The initial capital that was needed to employ these 77 women was $100.

“We want to provide migrants with that sense of rediscovery, new meaning to their migration story,” says Capoltura. “People want to know that their leaving hasn’t gone to waste, that they can contribute meaningfully.  It strikes at the core of their reason for leaving.”

Ana is an undocumented immigrant, who asked that her face not be shown.

By Alissa Ambrose

Ana is one of millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States who hopes for immigration reform that would create a clear path to legal residency. Legalization would allow her the right to work, pay taxes and travel freely, but most importantly, legalization might mean she could go home to save her brothers life.

Ana came to the United States from a small city in Russia, where she had worked two jobs to make $150 a month, on a temporary work visa. She earned a master’s degree in English literature in 2008 from West Chester University in Pennsylvania, then moved to New York City with dreams of becoming a teacher or librarian.

“I actually was looking for my American dream. You come and work hard, you do what’s right and I was hoping I would get a job,” said Ana, who asked to be identified by her first name only since she could be deported.

American-educated foreign students are eligible to work for one year after graduation through a program called Optional Practical Training. After that, they need to be sponsored by an employer.

But sponsorship, an expensive and lengthy process for employers, is more common in highly specialized fields such as technology and science than it is for teachers or librarians.

When Ana’s year was up in July 2009, she stayed in New York even though she was unemployed. Like many on temporary visas, she simply ignored the deadline to return home. She now works full time in an office for cash, unable to apply for legal positions without proper working papers. Living without a sense of security, unable to save, or even plan, for the future, is unsettling.

“I want to be able to do the right thing,” Ana said. “I try to do everything right, but I didn’t want to go home to a godforsaken place.”

In New York, even without papers, she is able to afford a relatively nice life. She shares a modest two-bedroom apartment with a roommate in Brooklyn and has a close-knit group of friends in the Russian community who like to spend weekends camping and traveling to Russian music festivals.

But Ana’s happy life was shattered in October when she received a devastating email from her father. Her only brother, Alex, has a rare form of blood cancer; perhaps a bone marrow transplant could save him. As his only sibling, Ana was the most likely person to be a match, but she would have to return to Russia to be tested.

Ana’s first instinct was to rush home, even though she knew that going back meant never returning to the United States. In Russia, whether or not she was a suitable donor, she would become a financial drain on her family.

“Going back to Russia right now would mean being another burden for my dad to feed,” she said.

Her parents and her brother told her not to come. They wanted her to have a better life. They would find another donor, or another form of treatment for her brother. Ana agreed. At least for now, she feels she can be more helpful from here. She sends home extra money to help defray the cost of Alex’s chemotherapy treatments. She spends hours researching cancer treatments – information – that is harder to access in Russia.

“I feel like I should be there and I think about going back,” she said.

She will go home if her family asks, but hopes that she will somehow gain legal residency so that she can go help her brother and then return to America.

Ana knows that President Obama has made legalization a theme in recent speeches, but she acknowledges that it doesn’t look like change is coming anytime soon.

It is, she says, a painful waiting game.

Photo by Jonathan Vit

Josette is a Haitian immigrant who asked that her face not be shown. Her tourist visa expires this month.

By Jonathan Vit

Josette was lying in bed, sick with malaria, when the ground began to shake. She recalls watching the walls of her Port-au-Prince home shudder in the quake, swaying dangerously close to collapse.

“We were shouting Jesus, Jesus, Jesus until the end,” Josette said.

After the shaking stopped, Josette ran into the streets with her family. Many of her neighbors were dead, trapped in the rubble of their collapsed homes. The National Palace was destroyed. It was only a ten-minute walk from her Magloire Ambroise Avenue home, but Josette watched the footage of television.

She was too afraid to step outside for long.

“I thought it was the end of the world,” Josette, 47, said.

But for Josette, surviving the 2010 earthquake that decimated Haiti was only the beginning of a longer struggle.

She arrived in New York City — like thousands of other recent Haitian immigrants — on a tourist visa shortly after the earthquake. It was a chance to escape the chaos of post-earthquake Port-au-Prince, a city awash in bouts of Cholera, crime and disorder at the time.

But living in the United States on a tourist visa hasn’t been easy.

Josette can’t legally work. Neither can her husband Ronald, 52. Instead the two live with their two children, Sasha, 15, and Tchanny, 12, in a cramped Brooklyn apartment. They survive off handouts and loans from friends and loved ones scattered along the east cost of the United States.

“I am not safe here,” Josette said. “ I cannot work, my visa expires this month. I am not safe.”

Her mother and father remained in Port-au-Prince, living in the tent cities set up after the earthquake. Her father, Mitchel, died in January of prostate cancer. Her mother refuses to leave the tents, partially out of fear of another earthquake, partially because she has nowhere else to go.

“She has a problem after the earthquake, a traumatic problem,” Josette said. “She is sick.”

Josette knows her mother would fare better in New York City. But without proper status, there is nothing she can do but wait.

“I cannot help where I am, because of my situation,” Josette said. “One year I don’t see my mother. I’m an only child, she doesn’t have anyone else. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to think.”

It’s a similar story among the estimated 3,000 Haitian immigrants who fled to New York City — home to the largest Haitian population in the United States — immediately following the earthquake. Recent arrivals were allowed to enter the states on a tourist visa, only to find no clear path to legal residency.

Early arrivals were told to apply for deferred action, which allows survivors of natural disasters to live and work in the United States for a year. Others applied for the Haitian Temporary Protective Status program. That program allowed Haitian citizens to live and work in the states for 18 months, but many immigrants — Josette included — were unable to qualify.

Now, thanks, in part, to the successful lobbying of Haitian-born councilman Mathieu Eugene, the U.S. government has extended the TPS program for another 18 months. The program was set to expire in July of 2011.

Marilyn Pierre, director of the Haitian Family Resource Center, called the extension “a miracle.”

“In the Haitian community we thought a lot of people look down on the Haitian culture, that we didn’t have a voice,” Pierre said, “This is a new day.”

Josette was riding the B41 bus — heading to the resource center — when she heard the news.

“When I was listening to the news I said thanks to God, thanks to God,” Josette said.

It is still unclear whether Josette will benefit from the TPS extension. She was unable to apply for the status the first time around, due to stipulations that Haitian immigrants had to be in the United States when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck.

But the news is still a ray of hope, something Josette — and Haitians like her — haven’t seen in some time.

“I am patient, I am patient,” Josette said. “I wait.”