Part Four: Anxious days for mother, daughter
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In day four of the A Home for Brissa special report, Brissa goes to the mall for a prom dress and her mom gets a present from a United States senator.
BY CINDY LANGE-KUBICK | Lincoln Journal Star
One arm swings the plastic bag carrying her strappy gold sandals. The other is wrapped around her boyfriend.
In Part Three:
Jessica refuses to give up. After their first petition is rejected she files again, and tries to keep life normal for Brissa and her three little sisters.
In Part Two:
Her friends away at college, Brissa must stay home watching cartoons with her little sisters, while her mom takes on the United States immigration system. She loses heart when their petition for an immigrant visa interview is rejected. But she doesn’t quit.
In Part One:
Brissa Placek turns 18 and a clock starts to tick. The girl from Acapulco, adopted by a Wilber family, has 180 days to get an immigrant visa or risk a three year ban from the United States. Her mom puts her life on hold to make it happen.
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Brissa Placek hunts for a prom dress, sliding her flip-flops along the shiny floor of Younker’s junior department.
She graduated from Wilber-Clatonia last year, but Anthony Bates, the shy wrestler she first asked out almost two years ago, is a senior.
Prom is eight days away. Prom helps keep her mind off other things.
She bypasses polka dots and ruffles, then pulls a slinky black dress with silver trim off the rack.
Is this OK?
Dad shrugs. Anthony shrugs.
What’s OK with your mom? Anthony asks.
“Probably a turtleneck. Do they make those?”
Mom vetoed her first dress. This could fit in a coat pocket, Jessica Placek told her daughter.
Brissa argued. But what was the point? Mom always wins. She tells her friends her mom is super strict. Deep down, she doesn’t mind.
Besides, it’s hard to be mad these days.
Heidi Kaschke from U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel’s office called Jessica four days ago.
Are you ready to go to Mexico?
For a second, the woman who’d fought so hard for so long for her adopted daughter couldn’t speak.
Then the word came.
When?
I have an appointment for you on May 8.
For nearly two years, Jessica has struggled to find a way to make Brissa legal. Now, at last, they’d pushed through the bureaucratic barriers. Brissa wouldn’t have to wait eight months or a year for her visa appointment in Juarez, Mexico.
Jessica let herself feel the moment. Then the inevitable question.
What do we have to do next?
Already they were scrambling to get a Mexican passport for Brissa — she’d need one to re-enter the United States after her appointment. Jessica took the morning off work last week to drive to Lincoln and cried on the phone talking to the Mexican consulate in Omaha.
Now Heidi assures her they will find a way to get Brissa back to Nebraska, even without the passport.
It looks good, but she can’t guarantee Brissa will make it through her appointment in Juarez and come home with approval for her green card.
That card would be her ticket. She could get a Social Security card, a job, go to college. In five years, she could apply to be a citizen.
A packet will be arriving in the mail, Heidi tells Jessica.
Follow the directions carefully.
On a rainy Monday morning after prom, a black Silverado pulls up in front of a red brick building in north Lincoln.
Max Graves, their immigration specialist, pulls their file, the thickest in a box filled with Hispanic surnames.
He opens the packet from the consulate in Juarez. Jessica is Brissa’s sponsor. Anyone wishing to get residency in the U.S. needs to have a sponsor. A relative already here. Or an employer.
Jessica flips through the instructions, English on one side, Spanish on the other.
Federal tax returns. Medical information. Evidence of assets.
On one page, a warning: Because of frequent assaults and robberies near the consulate, do not talk to strangers … do not carry extra cash … do not show your documents to anyone.
Jessica’s been reading stories in the paper about Juarez, a border city of more than 1 million. Hundreds of unsolved murders. A corrupt police force. Poverty. A world away from Wilber.
I’m scared, she says. We still need someone to help us get from El Paso to Juarez.
Late last week, she sent out an e-mail.
We are praying for transportation … I will continue to try to find someone to help us with this … Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. We are getting closer to the end.
Brissa pushes the cart through Wal-Mart while her mom throws in undershirts and white socks.
On the drive to the store, mother and daughter compare their complexions.
“My face is breaking out,” Brissa says.
“Mine is breaking out more than yours, though,” Jessica answers.
It’s stress, the mother says. Sitting in a meeting at work today, she felt her face turn clammy and her heart speed up.
The heartache felt like a heart attack.
Their plane leaves in 18 hours.
Since Brissa first came to stay with the family four years ago, she’s never been apart from her sisters for more than a few days.
This time, she will be gone a week.
“I’m sad,” she says, wiping back tears. “Sometimes I think it’s stupid because it’s not even that long, but I don’t know how it’s going to go.”
The consulate has the power to refuse her application. All she needs is that slip of paper saying she’s approved. Then she can go home.
It’s nearly dark as they head home to the farm. Clouds rise in the west, black against the dusky sky.
She’s going back to Mexico. She doesn’t want to think about it, but now it’s finally here and she can’t stop the thoughts.
Maybe when all this is over you can find your sisters, Jessica says. Maybe you can bring them here. Maybe it will all work out.
They start to cry, just before the rain comes down.
Next: The trip to Mexico brings back memories for the girl from Acapulco and opens her mother’s eyes to a whole new world.
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Can't adjust sisters wrote on June 28, 2006 3:34 pm: