An Illegal Immigrant's Legal Paradox

"I'm trying to be here for my kids. I'm trying to be here until they grow up," said Jaime R. Villagran, who is awaiting reinstatement of his work permit. (By James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post)
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"It is a moral obligation to take care of your children," she said. "I think these children deserve the emotional and financial support of both parents, whether or not those parents live together," she said.

In Virginia, one child in four depends on child support, said Phyllis Sisk, assistant director of the Division of Child Support Enforcement in the Virginia Department of Social Services. As of February, Sisk said, the division was handling 359,000 cases, involving 484,000 children who are owed more than $2.4 billion.

Sisk said officials never ask about citizenship or immigration status because any person who owes child support is required to pay. "We stress that of paramount importance is the child, that both parents have a financial obligation to their children," she said.

She said officials aim to collect through the "least invasive, least intrusive" action possible. "The bottom line is, we want to get the financial support for the children," she said. "We're not trying to put people in jail. That's one of the last things we do."

Villagran said he had hoped the state would recognize that he paid child support for years to the mother of his two children, 9 and 13. It's just that he hit "a gap" in life, he said.

Villagran said he entered the United States illegally with his brother when he was 14, crossing the border near Tijuana en route to joining his mother and father in Virginia. Villagran said that he dropped out of high school and obtained a work visa when he was about 18 and that he sold mattresses for years before taking a job refinishing metal.

Court records show Villagran paid $500 a month consistently from November 2001 until fall 2005. About that time, he injured a knee while working, according to records from a workers' compensation claim he filed.

In pain, out of a job and awaiting a settlement, Villagran said he made a crucial mistake: He allowed his work permit to expire.

Villagran said he moved back into his mother's Dale City home as he waited for a $6,000 workers' compensation settlement. He said he had planned to use the money to help pay child support and a lawyer who was completing his immigration paperwork. Court documents show that $3,900 was to go directly to child support and the rest, $2,100, to Villagran.

"It's not that I don't want to work," Villagran said. "They are my daughters. Once I get my work permit, if they want to take the entire check and leave me with $50, I'm fine with it. Even $25."

But he said he will not stand at the 7-Eleven in Woodbridge, among day laborers who just arrived in the country, and risk a secure future for the sake of a day's pay.

"I'm trying to be here for my kids," he said. "I'm trying to be here until they grow up."