ELYRIA – An Elyria woman is making an emotional appeal for help after learning her husband will be deported to Mexico Thursday.
It’s the reason she invited a Fox 8 camera inside her home with only hours left for her children to spend with their father, Pedro Hernandez-Ramirez.
“I can’t even imagine not seeing my husband from hour to hour much less for the rest of my life. Juan can’t go to Mexico,” says Pedro’s wife Seleste Wisniewski Hernandez.
Wisniewski is American born and explains her husband is a father of four including an adult child with special needs who is wheelchair bound.
“I can’t lift him up,” said Wisniewski. “I can’t do it my husband does all of that I never thought I would have to think about that.”
A stay in deportation was denied to the Elyria father Wednesday afternoon. Wisniewski says her husband has never received even a traffic violation. Elyria Police have no record of Hernandez-Ramirez being linked to any crimes within their jurisdiction. Family members argue he has legal right to remain in the U-S.
“He has an approved I-130 visa, he has a work permit that does not expire until the end of February 2018,” said Wisniewski. “He has credit, a drivers license, a social security card.”
ICE officials have repeatedly deported Hernandez-Ramirez each time he returned illegally to the U.S.
“Mr. Hernandez-Ramirez is a repeat immigration violator who has been removed from the U.S. on three separate occasions, beginning in 2001 and most recently on two occasions in 2013,” said Khaalid Walls, the ICE Northeast Regional Director of Communications. “In an exercise of discretion, ICE has allowed Mr. Hernandez to remain free from custody while timely finalizing his departure arrangements.”
Cleveland Catholic Diocese Bishop Nelson Perez recently met with family members to pray earlier this week. Bishop Perez says Hernandez-Ramirez’s story is proof of how broken the U.S. immigration system has become and how it desperately needs reform.
“This moved my heart,” said Bishop Perez. “I read about it and the circumstances and hardships that this family endures it just moved my heart and I wanted to accompany them in this movement.”
Hernandez-Ramirez will be deported Thursday afternoon. His young son came home from school today in tears after learning it could be years before he may see his father again.