Idaho (KTVX) — Cenobio Feliciano-Galeana came to the U.S. illegally when he was 18 years old. In the nearly two decades since, he found a life and a wife, with whom he now shares four children. But after seeing the deportations taking place across the country, he has decided to self-deport back to his home country of Mexico.
Ashlee, Cenobio’s wife, says she and the family are joining him. At the end of the year, she plans to move with her four children to a country they have never known, just to keep the family together.
Since they began their relationship, Ashlee and her family have been trying to get Cenobio through the process to gain status in the U.S., with no luck. Several lawyers and thousands of dollars later, she said not even being married to a U.S. citizen helps Cenobio’s cause.
“If I had a penny for every time somebody has said that, I’d have the money to pay for those lawyers.”
Ashlee shared the below photos of her family with KTVX.
She said the lawyers initially told them they had a fifty-fifty chance. After the Trump administration was sworn in, she says she was told they had no chance. Their options were to stay and risk it or have Cenobio self-deport and try again in 10 years.
“We have a six-year-old down to a nine-month-old baby,” Ashlee explained to Nexstar’s KTVX. “Ten years without a father? That is huge.”
For her, moving with him is her only option. Staying wasn’t something she was willing to do.
“Wait for one day for them to come into my home and take my husband away like a criminal and have my kids have to see that. And I decided that was not a choice I was willing to live with.”
Cenobio’s name doesn’t bring anything up in the Utah court system, but he was caught at the border twice and crossed it illegally. While Ashlee acknowledges his crime, she said it should not restrict her husband from getting a chance.
“He was born on the wrong side of a line,” she told KTVX. “He came here because he was starving. You know, what would you do if you truly went days without eating, starving? Where would your desperation lead you?”
So now, Ashlee and the kids pack up their things for a country they don’t know, wondering if they can ever come home again as a complete family. She hopes stories like hers inspire change so that a path to having status in the U.S. is attainable for people like her husband.
In May, the Trump administration announced it would offer travel assistance and a $1,000 stipend to those who registered for self-deportation through the Customs and Border Protection Home App. The Department of Homeland Security conducted its first charter flight for those who agreed to self-deport last month, Nexstar’s The Hill reported.
The flight took 64 citizens of Colombia and Honduras to their home country.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has cautioned people against taking the assistance, noting that some may not be able to return to the U.S. in the future.
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