Weeks after their father was deported to Honduras in March, Geyde Zapata’s three kids experienced another dramatic change in their lives: their schools in New Jersey shut down.
For 12-year-old William and 5-year-old Valerie, who both have autism, it was overwhelming to be stuck at home without their dad. William stopped showing interest in his remote classes and started getting upset with his mom, acting defensive and crying out for his father.
“My son would hug me and ask, ‘Where is my dad? Why hasn’t he come back?” Zapata, 35, said in Spanish. “It’s been extremely difficult.”
Like many families left behind in the wake of a deportation, Zapata faced a tough choice: Stay in the U.S. with her two citizen children growing up without their father or leave—and settle in a country her kids had never known.
She decided to leave.
“They need their father,” Zapata told Gothamist/WNYC last fall.
Melvin Herrera-Interriano was picked up by Plainfield police in 2019 for making an illegal turn. He also didn’t have an insurance card for the work van he was driving for his construction job. Instead of issuing him a summons and sending him on his way, police turned him over to federal immigration authorities for a 2005 deportation order.
Herrera-Interriano was deported four months later.
“That creates a whole crisis for the family,” said Ellen Whitt, a volunteer with DIRE, a Highland Park group that helps immigrants facing deportation. Whitt said it’s particularly tough for the children, who are sometimes U.S. citizens.
“It’s a very confusing situation. They do not understand why their father—usually it's the father—has been suddenly separated from them,” Whitt, who worked to get Herrera-Interiano out of detention, said. “How could you explain why you're taking someone away to a small child? Because he was born somewhere else?”
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Whitt said the Plainfield police’s actions were also in violation of a state directive created to increase immigrant communities’ trust in law enforcement.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal in 2018 directed local law enforcement to limit their cooperation with federal immigration officials. He ordered police not to stop, question, or arrest anyone based solely on that person’s immigration status and barred them from participating in enforcement operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s office, said any alleged violations of the order are internally investigated by local departments accused of disobeying the directive. The Attorney General’s office will respond in case of repeated violations, he said.
Whitt filed a complaint with Plainfield police. But officers were cleared of any wrongdoing by internal affairs, according to a copy of the letter the department sent Whitt. The letter also said the Union County Prosecutor’s Office agreed with the findings. Plainfield Police Director Lisa Burgess additionally told Gothamist/WNYC in an email that the department was in compliance with the directive.
Herrera-Interiano was issued a final removal order in 2005 for not showing up to his immigration court hearing after he was arrested for crossing the border illegally, according to ICE.
While the state directive doesn’t bar police from notifying ICE if a detained person has a removal order, Whitt said the traffic stop should not have resulted in Herrera-Interiano being taken into custody in the first place.
With the state expected to begin issuing driver’s licenses to residents regardless of their immigration status later this year, Whitt said it’s important to clarify these gray areas for police officers.
In October, Zapata’s two story yellow house in North Brunswick, where they’ve lived for the last 10 years, was nearly empty. Tall boxes filled the living room. Her stove and her refrigerator were gone, already sent to Honduras where those appliances would cost more than shipping fees.
“I’m going to miss this place,” Zapata, who has lived in the U.S. since she was 19 years old, said. “The best neighbors I’ve ever had, how I’m going to miss them.”
She said it pains her to think about her children’s future, especially William and Valerie, who were both born in New Jersey. If her son would have returned to in-person schooling this year, he’d be at a newly built $77 million campus. Geyde said she cried when she saw how beautiful it was and cried more when she knew William would never go there. Both kids will have to leave the therapists they’d been working with for years. In Honduras, getting the same opportunities will be difficult.
“Goodbyes are really hard,” Zapata said. And with the coronavirus, she wouldn’t have the time to see all her friends and family one last time.
She said she and her husband, who met when they were teenagers in Honduras, never had any problems with law enforcement and made sure they were present for every school meeting and doctor’s appointment.
“To people who haven’t hurt anyone, why do they have to do this to us?” she asked.
The next day, Zapata and her kids boarded a plane to Honduras.
