By

Ryan Stanton

, Feb, 8, 2018

The Ann Arbor News | MLive.com

DETROIT, MI — Joazhino Munoz was 12 years old when his mother brought him from Mexico to the United States seeking a better life.

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As a high school student in Detroit, he met his wife, Natalie, and today — 20 years after his arrival in the U.S. — they're raising four kids in the Detroit suburb of Lincoln Park.

But as a mixed-status family, their future is uncertain. Natalie Munoz, 30, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, was born in the U.S., as were her and Joazhino's four kids — ages 12, 11, 7 and 11 months. That makes them U.S. citizens.

Joazhino Munoz, 32, is not. Although he has no criminal record, the U.S. government wants him deported and he faces an uphill battle to stay in the country.

If he's forced to go, the whole family may uproot and relocate to Mexico, they say, or end up separated.

"It's sad. My kids are scared," Natalie Munoz said last spring, not long after the family's costly and emotional ordeal began.

Father of four facing deportation in Lincoln Park 19 Gallery: Father of four facing deportation in Lincoln Park

The Munoz family is among a growing number in America with cases tangled up in the nation's immigration courts following a year of ramped-up immigration enforcement under the Trump administration.

Detroit Immigration Court, which handles all deportation cases in Michigan, saw a 25 percent jump in newly filed cases during the 2017 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

More than 4,000 cases are now pending in the backlogged court, while roughly 650,000 are pending nationwide.

The resulting delays are causing stress both for the courts, which are scheduling hearings years out in some cases, and for the Munoz family and others feeling anxiety and uncertainty about their future while they wait.

Since last spring, after Joazhino Munoz was picked up by federal immigration officers and later released on bond, the Munoz family has been waiting for a hearing this March in Detroit Immigration Court.

If the family fights his deportation, a trial may come later.

The odds of Joazhino Munoz staying in the U.S. aren't good. The legal hurdles he must overcome are high and the outcome for most in immigration court is removal from the country. There is no easy path to legal status for undocumented immigrants like Joazhino Munoz.

He was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last May.

ICE officers showed up to the family's house to take him into custody about a month after a traffic stop in Detroit, when he was found to be driving without a license, a charge later dismissed in court.

Joazhino checks on his young son Joziel, 10-months, after he bumped his head while crawling around the family room on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. (Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News)

ICE maintains Joazhino Munoz is in the country illegally, and the fact that he's married to a U.S. citizen and has four U.S.-citizen children and no criminal record doesn't make him exempt from deportation.

According to ICE, Munoz already was told to voluntarily depart the country more than a decade ago.

He did leave in 2006, but he came back without authorization to be with his family and now faces the consequences.

4,381 deportation cases in Detroit

The Detroit Immigration Court, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, is one of dozens like it across the United States.

There were 4,381 deportation cases pending in the Detroit court at the end of fiscal year 2017, an increase from 3,757 a year earlier, according to the DOJ's Executive Office for Immigration Review.

The Detroit court's backlog of pending cases has grown 61 percent over the last five years, up 17 percent just last year.

The growing backlog is an indication that cases are coming in faster than the court can handle. The number of judges assigned to the court was reduced from four to three in the last two years.

Visiting judges sometimes appear via video feed from Puerto Rico or elsewhere to help carry the load.

Cases come into the court after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, typically ICE, initiates deportation proceedings by serving a non-citizen with a charging document known as a notice to appear, or NTA, and files that document with the court.

The Detroit court received 2,248 charging documents, or NTAs, resulting in new deportation cases in fiscal year 2017, up from 1,795 the year before. While that's the highest number in the last three years, it's actually slightly lower than the 2,378 in 2014.

The number of new deportation cases coming into the court has fluctuated over the years, while the total number of pending cases has been on an upward trend for several years, though it ticked down slightly in 2016 before jumping last year.

With a growing backlog, hearings in the Detroit court are being scheduled in some cases as far out as 2022.

A copy of the court's docket obtained in November under the Freedom of Information Act showed nearly 20,000 different hearings were on the calendar for 2017 and beyond.

Immigration attorneys handling those cases consider the three-judge court overburdened by the growing caseload, and they say it's delaying justice and causing stress for families that remain in limbo while cases are pending for years. One possible solution, they say, is to hire more judges, while another is for ICE to better prioritize which immigrants to arrest and place into deportation proceedings.

"If the individual has been placed in removal proceedings and their trial — their merits hearing — is not scheduled for four or five years into the future, this is going to be four or five years of a lot of uncertainty. It's possible that their trial could be moved up any day," said Ruby Robinson, an attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, which offers pro-bono legal services to immigrants.

MIRC is unable to meet the growing demand for legal assistance and has to be selective about the cases it takes.

'A courtroom full of children'

Arrests and deportation actions out of Detroit's ICE office spiked when President Donald Trump took office in January 2017. Trump and his administration vowed to ramp up immigration enforcement and issued executive orders and directives to that effect.

In the wake of those actions, ICE agents here tripled the number of immigrants with no criminal convictions taken into custody during Trump's first 100 days in office. For the full 2017 fiscal year, which counts the last four months of the Obama administration, ICE arrests of non-criminals in Michigan and Ohio doubled.

Non-criminals also were deported at an increased rate last year. Nearly half those being deported were non-criminals, compared to a third before, according to Detroit ICE figures.

Immigrant rights advocates argue the increased focus on low-priority violators of immigration law — people who don't have criminal records, who are contributing members of society and who have spouses and children who are U.S. citizens — is devastating many families while burdening immigration courts and costing taxpayers money. Going after husbands and fathers like Joazhino Munoz, they argue, benefits no one and hurts many.

Khaalid Walls, a Detroit-based spokesman for ICE, said the agency continues to focus its enforcement resources on immigrants who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security, but anyone in violation of immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if so ordered by the court, deportation.

He cited examples of ICE arresting dozens of foreign nationals with criminal records last year in Michigan, including some with convictions for child abuse, criminal sexual conduct, larceny, destruction of property, assault and battery and domestic violence.

Nationally, from the start of the Trump administration through the end of the fiscal year, ICE arrests for civil violations of immigration law went up 42 percent, while removals resulting from ICE arrests increased 37 percent. Walls cited information indicating 92 percent of those arrests involved people with a criminal conviction or pending criminal charge, or who were ICE fugitives or illegal re-entrants.

Immigrant rights advocates argue ICE is casting too wide of a net, bringing charges against people who weren't deportation priorities before Trump took office, and that's now clogging up the nation's immigration courts and causing delays.

After leaving the Detroit court one October morning after representing two juveniles whose cases are slowly working through the system, their next hearings scheduled out to July, MIRC attorney Darren Miller said he thinks there should be more prioritizing of dangerous and violent criminals in deportation proceedings.

"As you saw today, it was a courtroom full of children," he said. "None of them really have violent histories or criminal pasts. They're just trying to flee these situations of violence and abuse in their home countries. A lot of the new cases we're seeing are people who weren't necessarily targeted by immigration enforcement, but may have been kind of a collateral target of some targeted enforcement that they were trying to do. We're seeing a lot more of those types of cases."

Miller represents many juvenile clients who have fled violence and abuse in their home countries. Some are now living with relatives or in foster care, and waiting years for relief can be hard on them.

"The courts move pretty slowly and changes come quite slowly as well, so I don't want to be overly dramatic and say it's a night-and-day difference with the change of administration," he said, though he said there are new policies directing government attorneys to be more aggressive in trying to pursue deportation orders.

Darren Miller, a staff attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center in Ann Arbor, stands outside the Detroit Immigration Court. (Tanya Moutzalias | MLive Detroit)

For his minor clients, Miller said, there are more barriers now to getting relief from deportation.

"Due to a shift in policy, many youths who previously could have their asylum claims heard by a neutral government officer in a non-adversarial interview now are forced to fight their case in court, where an ICE attorney argues in opposition to the minor and the overall atmosphere is much more tense," he said.

Even youths with special immigrant juvenile status, allowing them to seek legal permanent residence in the U.S., are finding themselves in trouble, he said.

"These are children for whom a state court has determined were abused, abandoned or neglected by one or both parents, and whose best interests would not be served by returning to their home country," Miller said.

Now, ICE attorneys routinely object to extending the process for them to receive a green card and push for deportation, he said.

DHS considers 2017 a year of success for immigration enforcement, noting ICE made 143,470 arrests nationwide — up 25 percent from a year earlier — while carrying out 226,119 removals. U.S. Customs and Border Protection also reported 310,531 apprehensions nationwide, mostly along the southwest border.

"We have clearly seen the successful results of the president's commitment to supporting the frontline officers and agents of DHS as they enforce the law and secure our borders," Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke said in a statement in December. "We have an obligation to uphold the integrity of our immigration system, but we must do more to step up and close loopholes to protect the American worker, our economy, and our communities."

An ICE spokesman declined to comment on whether lower-priority cases resulting from ICE arrests may be overburdening the immigration court system.

Miller said he understands why the government is trying to be more aggressive in discouraging people from coming to the U.S. illegally.

"At the same time, I try to be a realist, and there are way too many cases pending in the system right now," he said.

"A lot of these children will eventually get relief (from deportation) and all we'll be doing in the immigration court is coming back multiple times to ask for more time while they pursue relief outside of the court system."

Miller said he gives credit to the courts for acknowledging the delays and trying to do what makes most sense at any given time, but he said the timelines for pursuing relief or finishing a case change all the time, and it's hard to process cases in an efficient manner.

Several immigration attorneys said they think the long wait to resolve cases in immigration court — due to the volume of cases and lack of resources — delays justice for both the government when someone's removal from the country is warranted and for the non-citizens facing charges when they have a strong case.

They say the delays prevent immigrants and their families from being able to move on with their lives, plan for their future, make decisions such as whether to buy a car or a house, and in some cases even obtain authorization to legally work and make ends meet while their cases are pending.

Permanent residents with green cards, which allow them to live and work in the U.S., can continue to legally work while in deportation proceedings, assuming they're not detained.

Undocumented immigrants also can obtain work authorization through DHS, allowing them to obtain Social Security cards and legally work while their cases are pending. But in certain circumstances, some are left in limbo, according to MIRC.

"Depending on what type of relief they're seeking, they may not be able to file something for a long time, and oftentimes, if you haven't filed your application for asylum or an application for cancellation of removal to get a green card, you're not eligible for work authorization in the interim. So, if there are certain procedural hurdles that prevent you from filing for various reasons, or you miss a hearing or something like that, you're not eligible to get interim work authorization," Robinson said.

"Based on this delay, you could be three, four, five years without getting the ability to lawfully work while your hearing is pending and that has huge repercussions in all aspects of life."

And for those due relief, there's the risk that laws could change or conditions in their home countries could change during the multi-year wait, leaving them no longer eligible when their day in court comes.

On the flip side, for those immigrants who are likely to be deported, many of whom are, the delays can buy them some time.

"In one respect, it's kind of nice for our clients, because if you don't have a very strong case, it means that, by the time you have your hearing, if you're out on bond, you might have three or four or five years before your individual hearing that you could be here with your family," Robinson said. "But, you know, it's a very tense time period if you're waiting for your hearing for five years."

Ruby Robinson, right, speaks with a reporter in a conference room at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center's Ann Arbor office. (Melanie Maxwell | Ann Arbor News)

Sitting at his desk in MIRC's Ann Arbor office last July, Robinson recalled a recent exchange he had with a judge in the Detroit court as they were trying to set a date for a trial.

"She said, 'How does your calendar look for Oct. 26, 2021?' I said, 'Your honor, right now it looks open.' She goes, 'Great. Would you prefer a morning or an afternoon hearing?' So, that's really kind of the situation," he said, expressing sympathy for the judges.

"They, like all of their colleagues around the country, are overloaded with work, overloaded with the number of cases, and there is no sign that that is going to let up anytime soon."

Brad Thomson, an Ann Arbor-based immigration attorney, said how fast cases move through the system varies.

"It's very random," he said. "Some cases are getting completed within a year and some cases are getting scheduled for like 2020."

Some cases are put on a faster track if the immigrant is being detained by ICE while the case is pending.

One of Thomson's clients, an Ypsilanti-area man from El Salvador, has been waiting since October for a final hearing set for January 2019.

In many cases, Thomson said, the final hearing dates end up changing — in some cases bumped up, and in other cases pushed back.

He said how some cases get resolved has changed from the Obama administration to the Trump administration. He said it used to be that if a client had good moral character, no criminal record and ties to the community, often those cases could be administratively closed through prosecutorial discretion without having to go to a final hearing.

"That has changed under the Trump administration, where everyone is a priority and it's next to impossible to get administrative closure," Thomson said.

DOJ records indicate the number of cases where that happened, where prosecutors agreed to cut some slack, dropped from 25,534 in fiscal year 2016 to 8,674 last year, down 66 percent. In the Detroit court, they dropped 72 percent, from 748 to 211.

But the DOJ offers a disclaimer: Due to various factors, there may be some cases that were administratively closed for reasons other than prosecutorial discretion that still show up in the figures, and there may be other cases that were closed on the basis of prosecutorial discretion not reflected in the figures.

Odds of avoiding deportation slim

Once placed into deportation proceedings, the odds of getting out of immigration court without being ordered to leave the country are slim.

Grants of relief from deportation in the court don't come easily, and statistically they're somewhat rare.

Many immigrants also go through the process without any legal representation, and it usually doesn't end well for them.

There often aren't a lot of options for someone in removal proceedings given the inherent limitations with the law, Robinson said.

In order for most immigrants in deportation proceedings to get cancellation of removal, they must show that their U.S. citizen or permanent-resident family members — spouse, parent or children — would face exceptional and extremely unusual hardship if they, the person facing deportation, were deported. One Ann Arbor father facing deportation last year was able to successfully make that argument because he had a special-needs child who is a U.S. citizen.

Statistics for the Detroit court show between 70 and 80 percent of initial case completions each year result in orders of removal, which include deportations and voluntary departures.

In the first nine months of fiscal year 2017, there were more than 1,200 initial case completions, 939 of which (78 percent) resulted in orders of removal, 103 of which (less than 9 percent) resulted in grants of relief from deportation, and 159 of which (13 percent) resulted in complete termination of the cases, meaning the court dismissed the cases entirely and charges were dropped.

In the first nine months of fiscal year 2017, there were only 38 asylum requests granted by the Detroit court, while 167 others were denied — a grant rate of 19 percent, compared to 40 percent nationally.

That actually was up from a 12 percent rate for the Detroit court the year before, while the nationwide average was 43 percent. Some immigration courts have asylum grant rates above 70 and 80 percent.

Graphic by Katie Karnes | MLive.com

Asylum is a form of protection granted to immigrants fleeing persecution in their home countries, allowing them to stay in the U.S.

"Detroit Immigration Court has, notoriously, been one of the most difficult venues to be approved for asylum anywhere in the country," Robinson said.

"We have had strong applicants who applied for asylum — and related forms of relief — but were denied, including a case that was just denied last week for a Haitian woman detained in Calhoun County Jail for almost a year. We will be appealing the denial."

People seeking asylum often apply outside the court though U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. They'll flee their home country first, and then seek asylum after they arrive.

"It is more difficult to apply for asylum defensively in immigration court because of the adversarial nature of the proceedings and the high corroboration and credibility standards that are more easily exposed upon cross examination," Robinson said.

Grants of relief from deportation other than asylum can include suspensions or cancellations of deportation and adjustments of status, granting someone legal permanent residency. Of the thousands of cases that come through the Detroit court every year, few such grants of relief happen — an average of 67 per year from 2013 to 2016, and 57 in the first nine months of fiscal year 2017.

Those 57 grants included 39 deportation cancellations or waivers for lawful permanent residents, seven grants of legal permanent resident status, and 11 deportation cancellations for non-lawful permanent residents (subject to an annual cap of 4,000 grants).

Immigrants also can seek Convention Against Torture relief from deportation if they can establish they would be tortured in their home country, but, again, few get such relief.

Of the 398 requests through the first nine months of fiscal year 2017, there were only two such grants in the Detroit court, and three the year before out of 574 requests.

'People's lives in their hands'

Immigration court hearings are civil administrative proceedings — not criminal proceedings — for foreign-born people charged with violating immigration law, and each case is uniquely complex. Some came to the country legally and others came illegally.

Those facing deportation appear before an immigration judge and either contest or concede the charges against them.

In many cases, the judge adjourns the case after an initial hearing and sets a continuance date. Cases are sometimes continued multiple times over a period of months or years before getting to what's called a merits hearing, essentially a trial. Sometimes that involves expert or witness testimony, and other times it's just a lone immigrant making an emotional plea, sometimes in tears, in hopes of staying in the country. They're cross-examined by an ICE prosecutor.

The immigrant facing deportation can file an application for relief or protection, and the judge renders a decision after hearing the merits of the case, either ordering the person's removal from the country or granting relief. If the judge decides DHS/ICE hasn't established removability, a case can be terminated.

The court's decisions can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which also is under the DOJ. If the board denies an appeal, it can go to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

"The Sixth Circuit, it's not known for its liberal interpretation of the law, so it's really tough," said Venu Yagalla, an Okemos-based attorney who practices immigration law in Michigan and finds himself appearing in Detroit Immigration Court more frequently these days.

Yagalla said the system is weighted against the immigrants, but he doesn't consider it a broken system. He sees it as his role to help ensure justice is served.

"It's a case-by-case situation. You have to make it work. Can it be better? Yes," he said.

"Under the immigration laws that exist right now, there is no predictability. That's what makes it so hard."

Yagalla said someone who hires an immigration attorney to represent them in deportation proceedings is probably going to pay, at bare minimum, $4,000 to $7,000 in legal fees before their case is over. Sometimes it can be closer to $15,000 to $20,000.

In the midst of a messy legal battle over the threatened deportation of many Iraqi nationals last year, Shanta Driver, a Detroit-based attorney with the United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund, said she's practiced law for years and immigration law is "the most lawless, Wild West law that I practice."

She said there's a lot of discretion involved throughout the entire process, from the ICE officer who arrests an immigrant on the street to the judge who decides their fate.

Robinson said he thinks the Detroit court's three judges are generally fair and reasonable.

One is a former ICE prosecutor, one is a former private immigration attorney, and one is a former assistant U.S. attorney.

He said there is some discretion in asylum cases, and that's where he thinks the Detroit court is tough. But for other forms of relief, he said, the judges have limited discretion.

"Our immigration laws don't give judges a whole lot of opportunity to say, 'Oh, well, you know, this is a really good guy.' Well, even if this guy might be great and he gets a letter from the pope, unless he can demonstrate these six requirements which are needed to qualify for a green card, the judge has no discretion but to deny the relief, which as a judge I think it makes their lives very tough," he said.

"And the decisions they make are tough, because these are people's lives in their hands. But at the same time, if the law doesn't allow for a form of relief, they can't do anything."

Community High School student and daughter of Yousef Ajin, Betoul, right, hugs family following an immigration hearing where a judge allowed her father to remain in the country at the McNamara Federal Building in Detroit on Tuesday, February 28, 2017. (Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News)

Yagalla, an immigrant from India who came to the U.S. in 1993 to earn a doctorate from Michigan State University, said he understands what his clients are going through and his work is personal.

He said it's hard to understand sometimes why the government would seek to deport someone who had a green card and potentially separate them from their spouse and children who are here legally, sometimes because of relatively minor crimes from many years ago such as shoplifting or using marijuana, crimes for which they already paid fines or served probation.

He said family members who are left behind, sometimes spouses and children who are U.S. citizens, end up paying the price.

In some cases, immigrants who have been in the country for decades and had been legal green card holders are detained and placed into deportation proceedings after a routine check-in with immigration authorities or after traveling outside the country and trying to return, because of a past criminal conviction.

"The government reserves the right to kick you out," Yagalla said, adding his advice to green card holders is to seek citizenship if eligible, because legal permanent residents can face deportation.

Robinson agrees non-citizens have to be very careful, as they can face steep consequences for relatively minor crimes.

He said having a marijuana conviction from when they were younger and then taking a trip outside the country is a common way people land in immigration court. He said even getting caught not paying bus fare can make someone with a green card deportable.

"You might have lived in the United States for 20 years, but, you know, you got ticketed for not paying the fare on the bus two times — that makes you deportable," he said.

"It's known as a crime involving moral turpitude."

Nearly 650,000 cases pending nationwide

Through the first nine months of fiscal year 2017, thousands more new cases entered the nation's immigration courts than in any full year in recent history — on average 26,641 per month, compared to 17,829 per month for the previous four years, a nearly 50 percent jump.

Another 40,280 new cases were filed over the next two months, indicating the rate slowed somewhat, though that's still higher than previous years.

Nationwide, the total number of pending cases climbed to 649,127 by the end of the fiscal year, up about 25 percent or 130,582 cases from a year earlier. The backlog has more than doubled in the last six years.

Acknowledging there has been a "massive increase," the DOJ has a stated goal of cutting the pending caseload in half by 2020.

The Detroit court's administrator referred questions about the court and its backlog to a Chicago-based spokesperson for the DOJ, who agreed to provide answers on background.

Immigration judges do not give interviews.

In terms of Detroit's asylum grant rate being significantly lower than the national average, the DOJ says each case is unique, with its own set of facts, and each one is reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The DOJ says its Executive Office for Immigration Review takes seriously any claims of unjustified and significant anomalies in immigration judge decision-making and takes steps to evaluate disparities and regularly evaluates judge performance.

As for the case backlog pushing hearings years out for many people, the DOJ notes the database is frequently updated so hearing dates can change and immigrants facing deportation can request an earlier hearing date by filing a motion.

The DOJ says the EOIR has a multi-level strategy to address the backlog nationwide, including hiring more judges, working to make the process more efficient, and increasing video-teleconferencing.

"EOIR is undertaking a broad, agency-wide effort to review and reform its internal practices, procedures and technology in order to enhance immigration judge productivity and ensure that cases are adjudicated in a fair and timely manner across all of the agency's courts," a DOJ spokesperson said in November.

Although multiple factors have contributed to the growing caseload, the DOJ says judges must ensure lower productivity and adjudicatory inefficiency don't further exacerbate the situation.

"It is important to note that, while the case backlog is still ticking up, the rate at which it is growing has slowed in recent months from more than 3 percent in February to less than .5 percent in November," a DOJ spokesperson said in December.

The Detroit court dropped from four to three judges in May 2016 when a judge was transferred to the Miami court.

Robinson argues the Detroit court needs more resources.

"It needs more judges. It needs more staff. It needs a bigger waiting room," he said, referring to the court's 38-seat lobby, which at times is packed, leaving people standing or sitting on the floor in a nearby hallway.

As of December, there were 339 immigration judges nationwide, which is up from 273 in September 2016.

The EOIR is currently authorized to have up to 384 judges and the DOJ says it's working to reach that goal.

The EOIR's fiscal year 2018 budget request proposed increasing the number of judges to 449. That would involve hiring dozens of new judge teams, each consisting of one judge and five support staff, at an annual cost of $75 million, growing the EOIR's budget to more than $500 million. So far, that hasn't been approved.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo on Dec. 5, saying the DOJ was renewing its commitment to efficiently handle immigration cases. The memo states the EOIR brought on 50 new immigration judges since Trump took office and more than 60 more were expected in the next six months.

"We are actively developing a long overdue e-filing system to pilot in mid-2018," the memo states. "Initial case completions rose in FY 2017 to the highest level since FY 2012. In accordance with the law, we are prioritizing the completion of cases and developing performance measures to ensure that EOIR's mission of fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly administering the immigration laws is fulfilled.

"But as you know, tremendous challenges lie before us. There are approximately 650,000 cases pending before the immigration courts," the memo continues.

"Although we showed signs of leveling off the increase in the non-detained portion of the backlog at the end of FY 2017, we nevertheless face a steady stream of criticism that we are overwhelmed and that the backlog is intractable. I strongly disagree — this challenge is not insurmountable, but it does require a concerted effort to address it."

Holding onto hope

With only weeks to go until Joazhino's hearing in Detroit Immigration Court, the Munoz family is preparing for what may come next.

They hope they can stay together in America, but they know there's a good chance Joazhino Munoz could be deported. Those who are deported typically are not eligible to return to the U.S. for 10 years.

If he is deported, the family's fears of gang activity, violence and kidnapping in Mexico may keep Natalie Munoz and the kids from following him, though they've talked about moving to Texas so they could make occasional trips across the border to visit.

She said they would fly to somewhere safe for those visits, because it's risky to drive through Mexico due to drug cartels.

"You want to stay optimistic and stay positive and hopeful, but you also have to be realistic and be prepared," she said, adding she has faith and hope that everything will be OK and she's grateful that, despite the family's struggles, they have their health.

While Joazhino's case is pending, the family is taking steps to seek relief outside the court.

Last fall, Natalie Munoz submitted a petition for her husband to USCIS, the first step in potentially positioning Joazhino to obtain legal status as the spouse of a U.S. citizen. According to Natalie, they had to wait 10 years to apply after his voluntary departure from the country in 2006.

They're still working through the process and it could take a while, but they're hoping Joazhino Munoz eventually can get a green card and be in the country legally for the first time since he came here at age 12.

"He was brought here as a child not because he wanted to, but because his mother wanted to provide a better life for him than what he had in his country, and so he's lived here all his life," Natalie Munoz said.

"He knows nothing about Mexico. Yeah, he has family there, but it's not the same," she said last spring. "It's scary to see the possibility of him being deported. Not only is it going to tear my family apart — you know, I have four children, and I just had a newborn."

According to an immigration attorney familiar with the details of the case, it's likely Joazhino Munoz will have to go back to Mexico and apply for an immigration visa and waiver to be able to return to the U.S., and to get such a waiver after being deported he would need to demonstrate that his absence from the U.S. creates extreme hardship for his spouse. Legally, that's a high hurdle to overcome.

Fighting back tears, Natalie Munoz said she knew about her husband's undocumented status when she married him years ago, but she didn't fully realize how serious of a problem it would be for them.

Joazhino Munoz had his first encounter with immigration authorities more than a decade ago when he went to bail someone out of jail.

He was allowed by an immigration judge in 2006 to voluntarily leave the U.S., but he soon came back, living under the radar.

According to Natalie Munoz, after they got through Christmas 2016, they planned to pull together some money to finally go through the process of applying to USCIS and to begin trying to seek legal status for Joazhino in 2017, now that the 10-year bar had lapsed. It was finally time, they thought, but then he was pulled over while driving.

Natalie Munoz claims Detroit police had no reason to stop her husband last spring. She said it happened in front of a relative's house during a family gathering, and she believes it was racial profiling. The department did not respond to requests for comment.

She said unfortunately her children witnessed both the Detroit police encounter and how ICE officers treated Joazhino when they came weeks later to take him away, and now her children have fear and anxiety when they see police, whereas they didn't before.

She claims ICE officers were unnecessarily rough with her husband in front of their home, pulling him out of his car and slamming him up against it before handcuffing him, while yelling at the kids who were emotionally upset and crying out.

Joazhino Munoz was detained for more than two weeks before being released on bond, which the family says cost $6,500.

Natalie said her children were initially very shaken up by the ordeal.

"They're having trouble trying to understand, if their father wasn't doing anything wrong, why was he treated that way?" she said, getting emotional. "It brings me to tears."

She said she took the children to see a psychologist and they're doing better now, though they're still dealing with the anxiety and uncertainty of not knowing what's going to happen to the family.

"He's not a bad guy," she said, noting her husband at one point had his own business doing car detailing, vinyl wrapping, window tinting and waxing. The family has talked about wanting to reopen it, but Joazhino Munoz can't legally work right now without federal authorization.

In addition to waitressing and other jobs, Natalie Munoz is selling personal items to help the family make ends meet. She also started a business with her sisters selling all-natural, skin-care products.

Between legal fees and everything else, the family expects to spend well over $10,000 fighting to stay together.

They're also fighting for others in similar predicaments. Joining with Michigan United, a group working on immigrant rights issues across the state, Natalie and Joazhino Munoz, with their newborn in tow, attended a legislative hearing in Lansing last June as Republican state lawmakers were considering ways to crack down on so-called "sanctuary cities."

Natalie said she joined Michigan United as a volunteer activist for her own family and to help others who are afraid to speak out about the increased hardships many families are facing as a result of more aggressive immigration enforcement.

"It's very sad seeing how families are being torn apart," she said. "There are so many people being detained right now, left and right, in Pontiac, Ann Arbor, Detroit. You see it every day."

In addition to attending meetings, rallies and lobbying efforts, she became certified as a notary public, volunteering to help immigrants get essential power-of-attorney documents for temporary child custody notarized. In the event that anyone is detained or deported, having those documents can help ensure their kids are under the care of someone they know and trust, rather than foster care.

Natalie Munoz said she knows others in her community who are facing and have faced deportation this past year, including some already deported and others with cases still pending.

"The fight is not over," she said. "We will keep on pushing. We will keep on speaking. We will protest at rallies. Whatever it takes. We will get more people together, but we will not stop."