DIGGING DEEPER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided some of the earliest coverage on the flood of unaccompanied children from Central America crossing the nation’s southwest border. From the consequences for the state to one youth’s odyssey, find our coverage on MyAJC.com.
It didn’t take Shad and Connie Ayers long to decide Alex Gomez Carrillo should join their family.
The couple spent a few days determining they have enough income to support the 17-year-old Guatemalan along with their two children. They could convert their unused dining room into a bedroom for him. Above all, they decided taking in Alex was the right thing to do.
Alex is among tens of thousands of Central American children and teens who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents since last year. Many say they are fleeing deprivation and gang violence in their native countries.
The surge of juveniles has prompted angry protests across the country. Saying the children would be a burden on taxpayers, U.S. flag-waving demonstrators in Murrieta, Calif., blocked busloads of the children and their parents from entering their town in July. That same month, Gov. Nathan Deal fired off a blistering letter to President Barack Obama about the hundreds of immigrant children and teens who have been placed in the care of sponsors in Georgia this year. Deal told Obama that Georgia has received a “disproportionate number of refugee placements over the past few years.”
In contrast, the Ayerses have welcomed Alex with open arms. Their Baptist faith and their immigrant ancestry — her forebears migrated to the U.S. from Mexico and he is the descendant of Irish immigrants — also figured in their decision to welcome Alex. Connie Ayers thought to herself: “What if I was in that situation and I needed help, would there be somebody there to help me?”
Ayers is now seeking in court to become the teenager’s guardian, which could allow him to obtain legal status here.
“I can’t sit back and watch someone suffer or be sent to a place where they are going to be hurt when I can do something about it,” said Ayers, who was born in Texas and grew up, like her husband, a few hundred miles north of the Mexican border.
Alex said the Ayerses have quickly become his family.
“Connie treats me like I am her son,” he said in Spanish with Connie Ayers translating for him. “I have shoes. I have clothes. I have everything … not like in Guatemala. It’s a different life.”
A long journey to Georgia
The Ayerses live in Cedartown, a quiet North Georgia town of about 9,700 residents that sits near the Alabama border. With a population that is nearly one-third Hispanic but mostly white, Cedartown has a history of racial tensions. Jobs at a local food-processing plant attracted many Hispanic immigrants to the area. In 1981, the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated outside the plant, saying Mexicans were taking jobs from Americans.
Despite that history, the Ayerses said, Cedartown has embraced Alex. He has made many friends at Cedartown High School, where he is studying English and geometry. He is preparing to try out for the varsity soccer team.
Connie Ayers first met Alex while attending a local church during the summer of last year. Alex told her he grew up in poverty in Guatemala, living with eight other siblings in an adobe house with dirt floors and no indoor plumbing. Food and clothing were scarce. He started working as a young boy, selling candy and ice cream to help support his family while missing years of education. He described a troubled relationship with his father. And he said a local gang member threatened to kill him.
Fearing for his life, Alex set off for America in May of last year, paying coyotes — or smugglers — to help him along the way. He traveled with a group of strangers by car across Guatemala and then set off on foot at the Mexican border. At times, the coyotes concealed him in a barrel and in a refrigerator. In all, it took him more than two weeks to finally cross the Rio Grande.
Federal immigration authorities apprehended him on the other side of the river. They put him in deportation proceedings before releasing him last year to the care of an older brother, who is also living without legal status in Cedartown.
Fighting to stay in America
So far this fiscal year, authorities have apprehended 66,127 unaccompanied children and teens like Alex on the southwest border, or nearly twice the number arrested by the same time last fiscal year. The surge of children has jammed immigration court dockets in Atlanta and elsewhere and prompted President Barack Obama to ask Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency funding to respond to the crisis. Congressional Republicans have pushed for a lower figure.
After befriending Alex, Connie Ayers drove him to his deportation hearing in downtown Atlanta in the summer of last year. Watching a steady stream of children appear before the immigration judge that day served as an eye-opener for her.
“I really didn’t grasp the gravity of it. I wasn’t getting it,” she said. “And then this little girl — 9 years old — walks in by herself. All she has is her attorney with her. They are going to send her home. She starts crying. And I start crying because she is little. I couldn’t imagine sending my child to another country by herself.”
The judge scheduled a new hearing for Alex so he could find a lawyer. Ayers quickly found Rocky Rawcliffe, a local immigration attorney. Rawcliffe persuaded the judge to continue Alex’s deportation case until April while the teen seeks relief from deportation.
Meanwhile, with the help of another attorney, Tracie Klinke, Ayers is asking the Polk County Juvenile Court to declare Alex dependent upon the state and to approve her as his legal guardian. If the court grants that request, Alex could apply for a form of relief for children who are unable to be reunited with their parents. He could get a green card through the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status program.
Ayers giggled about how she had impulsively offered to take in Alex before consulting her husband.
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute. Stop. Timeout,’ ” Shad Ayers recalled, laughing about his wife.
He thought about it for a few days, wondering whether Alex would fit in with their family and if they could afford to care for him. Then he and and his wife invited Alex to their modest home for a cookout. Sitting in their den, they told Alex they expected him to respect them, go to school and stay out of trouble. He agreed and moved in with them in July.
A new home
The transition hasn’t been easy. Shad Ayers works full time for a telecommunications company. And Connie Ayers is taking nursing classes while caring for Alex and her 13-year-old daughter, Alexis. After helping them with their lessons, she sometimes doesn’t get to her nursing homework until after midnight. The Ayerses’ 20-year-old son, Bobby, and Alex take turns sleeping on the couch. And their home has only one shower, so “the bathing schedule is awful,” Connie Ayers said.
So far, Alex has kept his promises. He’s doing well in school. And he voluntarily helps around the house, cleaning dishes, doing laundry and sweeping.
“Nobody bothers me,” he said. “It’s a happy life.”
Shad Ayers is struck by Alex’s determination.
“Really and honestly — and I hate saying this — I wish more American kids would have the type of attitude that he has,” Ayers said. “He knows he has an opportunity and he knows this isn’t something to take for granted.”
Asked about his future, Alex said he wants to become a U.S. citizen, go to college and study to become a teacher. He also wants to become a professional soccer player. And an architect. He has lots of plans. And the Ayerses say they will be there to support him along the way.
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