“I’m scared. In every sense of the word I am downright petrified. I wake up every morning afraid of what is going to happen. I wonder whether today will be the day I get arrested and deported or if I will even make it home safe, or make it home at all,” said Mario Gomez (his name was changed in order to protect his identity).

The 24-year-old liberal arts major is one of the many people that has to fear for his life and lives every day hoping to be able to make it through the day and get home to his wife.

As an undocumented illegal immigrant, Gomez has both suffered and learned to overcome many obstacles that have been presented in his life.

He has admitted to the crimes, such as identity theft, he felt compelled to commit in order to try to survive and prosper in this “beautiful and great land of opportunities” he calls the United States.

“I’ve done so many things that I wish I could say I regret doing, but in all honesty I don’t think I could or should regret something that has helped my family prosper and survive,” he said.

He is currently attending Cerritos College under a different name and working under someone else’s social security number.

Prior to attending Cerritos College, he also attended ELAC and Cypress College, also under a different name, but was forced to leave because he was not able to present official proof, such as a birth certificate, in order to continue receiving financial aid.

“Since I have been here in the U.S. I have stolen three identities, six social security numbers, and 14 cars among other stolen objects,” he admitted, “not once have I gotten caught but I’ve been close to.”

He recalls a time when immigration barged into his two-bedroom apartment that he shared with 10 other tenants, and was almost arrested and deported.

Apparently, someone had called the cops and informed them of the drug use in the apartment. Some of the other tenants were not only busted with drug charges but were also deported.

“My wife and I had carved out some of the hardwood floor and created a tiny hiding space in our bedroom,” he said, “as soon as we heard the sirens I dragged my wife into the bedroom, pulled up the wooden floor and hid inside. It was horrible. My wife had her eyes closed and was biting into my shoulder so she wouldn’t scream or cry so hard that the cops might hear her.”

He describes the experience as one of the most terrifying experiences in his life; almost as terrifying as it was when he was crossing the border with his 2-year-old son, his then pregnant wife, and 64 other people.

It was around two in the morning when the caravan was forced to run for their lives because border patrol guards and their search dogs were spotted nearby.

“I lost my son and my wife lost the baby she was carrying,” he shared in tears.
When they began to run, his wife lost grip of their youngest son and was then trampled on.

Gomez said it was impossible for him to try to search for his son because he kept getting pushed to ground and stepped on by all the people that were running in the opposite direction he was running.

As if the loss of his son was not hard enough for him to cope with, he was then forced to face the fact that his wife was having a miscarriage and that there was nothing he could do about it.

He said, “She was bleeding a lot and was trying not to give shrilling screams of pain. She was losing our child right there in the middle of the desert and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it except hold her hand and cry with her. I felt so hopeless, as if I had failed as a man.”

Although it was a very difficult trip, he said, they made it across the border. As soon as they were over, a family was kind enough to offer them shelter and helped provide his wife with the medical attention she needed.

There are days when he feels he should have just stayed in Mexico that way his wife would not have had to bear everything they went though.   

“Every time I think about what my wife and I have experienced I am brought to tears,” he said, “I have sacrificed a lot and done many horrible things in order to survive, but I am an immigrant and as hard as it may be, I will not stop fighting. I will do anything and everything to give my wife and my future kids the future they deserve.”