Immigration Arrests Separate Actress From Family

Actress Diane Guerrero, star of “Jane the Virgin” and “Orange Is the New Black”, was separated from her parents and brother after their immigration arrests when she was 14. She told her story to National Public Radio and related how she learned that her family had been rounded up in an immigration arrest and were processed for deportation back to their native Colombia. She spoke about how she “lived in the shadows” for years, waiting to find a way to reunite with her family in the U.S.

Sudden Immigration Arrest Leaves Young Girl Alone

Ms. Guerrero, now 28, was born in New Jersey and raised in Boston. Her parents and older brother had attempted to gain U.S. citizenship, but the process had been slow and had not yet yielded any results. When she came home from school one day at age 14, she found an empty house, a dinner cooking on the stove, and no sign of where her family had gone. A neighbor informed her of the immigration arrest and took her to see her parents and brother at an immigration detention center near Boston.

After Immigration Arrests, “No One Checked” On Young Girl

In an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, Ms. Guerrero wrote about her experience after her family’s immigration arrest. She wrote that the immigration arrests left her “basically on (her) own” at 14. She also wrote about how government agencies neglected the fate of a young girl, now left without a family.
“Not a single person at any level of government took any note of me,” she wrote in the piece. “No one checked to see if I had a place to live or food to eat.”

Immigration Arrests Force Terrible Choice

The immigration arrests of her parents and brother left Ms. Guerrero with a horrendous choice for anyone, let alone a 14-year-old girl. As a native-born citizen, she had the right to staying in Boston. Immigration authorities also gave her the choice of going to Colombia with her family. She chose to stay in the U.S. and lived with other Colombian families throughout her high school career. She believed that she was in a better position to “get my family back together” through both her acting career and her immigration activism.

Sources: National Public Radio, Los Angeles Times

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