Rosa worked as a nanny in New York City for more than 20 years and still helps raise the children who come to see her when she gets home from college. Now, she plans to move out of the country, despite continued demand for childcare services. Like her partner of 16 years, a construction worker, she plans to voluntarily leave the country. He went to Colombia, she went to Guatemala. “Then he can come visit me,” she said. 28
“At least we don’t feel like someone is following us or chasing us, because we both feel that way,” she said. “Every day on Spanish TV there are ads that say, ‘If you do something illegal, we’ll catch you. We’ll kick you out.’ That’s the message we hear every day. Every day. It affects you.”
“It’s like a small drop of water hitting a stone. Sooner or later, holes start to form,” she says. “People don’t know what we’re going through.”
Before coming to the United States, Rosa was a single mother of two children in Guatemala. She taught at a tourist language school and sold jewelry for a major US-based company. Then the recession hit and she lost her job and had to support her children, ages 2 and 4. She accepted the invitation of her childhood boyfriend, an American citizen living in New York, and left the children with their mother until she could secure a visa. However, once she arrived in New York, her boyfriend was no longer able to support her and her tourist visa had expired.
“I didn’t have anything, so I started looking for a job,” she said. As an undocumented woman, she took a conventional path, taking jobs as a nanny and house cleaner. “It was good money, so I sent it back to feed my children,” she said.
She has heard stories of mothers smuggling their children across borders. “But I wouldn’t do that. It’s too hard and too dangerous,” she said. “I wanted to do it the legal way, but I couldn’t. I’ve been talking to lawyers ever since I got here.”
Her children remained her top priority. “They couldn’t go back because they needed money. They needed money to go to school.” Her son, who grew up and still lives in Central America, is an engineer and her daughter graduated with a law degree. They were able to avoid the extreme overcrowding in public schools and the guns and violence that engulf so many teenagers.
“You have no idea how many nights I cried because I missed you and because I wanted to hold you,” she said.
But Rosa has been there for the American “children,” including more than a dozen children from four families, and has cared for them over the years. That was another reason why she stayed in this country for so long. She felt an obligation to American families, families that required both parents to work and relied on immigrant caregivers like hers for accessible and affordable child care. Many children were obsessed with her and she was obsessed with them. She loved it and always loved it.
“Honestly, I love children,” she said. “They’re very curious, they’re very creative. They’re really honest with you, their feelings, the facts. And they learn from you.”
Rosa always used her Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) to pay her income taxes and contribute to programs like Social Security and Medicare that she would not benefit from even if she remained in the United States. She does not drink or use drugs and has never been arrested. “I’ve never been in trouble,” she said.
In September, Rosa was still going to work to fulfill commitments to her family. But she said she couldn’t take the stress and fear any longer. She changed her route to and from work to avoid rush hour. She called her taxi driver friend and asked for an ICE alert. Sometimes he gave her a ride in the car.
“It’s not fair that the people who come and work are threatened, scared and humiliated. I want the freedom to be happy and work as usual, without worrying about who will take me away, who will hurt me, who will treat me like an animal,” she said.
“It’s sad to go home, but we have to have freedom, not live in cages.”
The post “A Life of Care in the Shadows” originally appeared on American Immigration Council.
