LOS ANGELES — Héctor Bonilla was on the verge of deportation for allegedly driving high and bringing his minor daughters in his car.  This mistake became a nightmare that lasted several years for the immigrant, who had to face prison, a great fight to recover his three daughters and finally be able to obtain legal residency in the United States.

 Recently, as Bonilla looked at his green card, with watery eyes he said he was sorry for his actions and was deeply grateful for the opportunity that the immigration authorities gave him to obtain this precious permit to stay and work in the United States legally.

 The authorities of the Service of United States Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS) They can deny the request for a green card if the person does not meet certain requirements, one of them being having a clean criminal record.

 According to immigration experts, each case is different, but a criminal record will not always prevent an immigrant from obtaining legal status.  Adequate representation in criminal and immigration court is integral.

 “At that time I was depressed because I couldn't find work and I had to support my family.  I turned to drugs as a way to forget my problems and my family had to pay for that,” said Bonilla, who arrived in the United States as an unaccompanied minor in 2000.

 Héctor met his wife in East Los Angeles and had three daughters, now 13, 10 and 8 years old, and a 9-month-old boy.

 Héctor's odyssey began in early 2018, with a traffic stop where the agent realized that he had consumed some type of drug and arrested him.  In the car were his three daughters who were separated from his father and sent to the child care system.

 “I worked as a day laborer, but most of the time there was no work and I never thought about the consequences of my actions.  The moment the authorities took my daughters away, I thought I would never see them again.  That was when I decided to start my life change,” he said.

 As part of that fight, Bonilla managed to get out of jail six months after his arrest, but was transferred to the Mesa Verde immigration detention center for another six months.  As an undocumented person, Bonilla claims that they pressured him to sign a voluntary departure from the country, but he refused and that is how he began his pilgrimage through immigration courts for a period of four years.

 In 2019, upon leaving Mesa Verde after paying a fine of $10,000, Bonilla decided to apply for permanent residence with the request of his wife and the benefit of 245-I so as not to leave the country.  The couple was able to visit their daughters on weekends, a painful process that finally ended when their daughters were returned in early 2020.

 Thanks to the charity of a Christian church, the five lived in one room for several months until a nonprofit organization provided them with a two-bedroom apartment.

 The case of Bonilla, 37 years old, is exemplary and extraordinary, because he had to show the authorities regret for his actions, and he had to take numerous classes to get rid of his addictions and classes for parents, all of this for four years.

 However, that is not enough for immigration authorities, said attorney Sergio Siderman, who handled his case.

 “Depending on the type of criminal record an immigrant has, it could be useful to annul or delete crimes from his or her record,” the lawyer said.

 The expert also recommends that interested parties obtain a FOIA. The Freedom of Information Act, enacted in 1966, states that any person within the United States has the right to obtain access to federal records, except where these are protected from public disclosure by some exemptions related to public order or national security.

 Any person, whether a citizen or not, can request it.  FOIA is a valuable tool for immigration cases, since with it, the lawyer can know the entire immigration history of the applicant.

 For this reason, having an experienced immigration attorney review these records, and seeking the assistance of a criminal defense attorney with experience in these cases, can greatly help a person advance their documentation, the attorney said.

 What would be his advice to undocumented immigrants with records who may obtain residency through a family petition?

“The advice for those with criminal records is to always make sure you run your FOIA, so that you have a complete record of your actual history, because that will be a huge determining factor in how a family petition can help you obtain residency, or any other way.” of relief,” said the lawyer.

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