Maricela Sosa, 32, came to the United States in 1997 when she walked through the US-Mexico border on foot. She was deported to her native Nicaragua in January 2009. She leaves behind her two children, daughter Cecia Sosa, 12, and her son Ronald, 9. Her husband, Ronald Sosa, 42, remains in an undisclosed location in the United States but has little to no contact with his children for fear of also being deported.
Before she was deported, both Cecia and Ronald began a hunger strike to protest their mother’s inevitable deportation in hopes of keeping her in the states longer and gaining support from the community for her release. However, on January 27, 2009, Maricela Sosa, was deported back to Nicaragua leaving her two children behind in Florida.
Both Cecia and Ronald Sosa are part of a lawsuit filed by Miami based organization American Fraternity Inc. on behalf of 600 children (US citizens) who have been left behind after one or both parents were detained and deported without any due process. Some of them are children whose parents await deportation proceedings. This lawsuit against President Obama was presented in the Supreme Court because congress has ruled that class-action immigration cases cannot be filed in federal courts.
According to American Fraternity Lawyer, Alfonso Oviedo Reyes, the immigration reform of 1996 changed the rights of American children. Before 1996, undocumented parents of American children had the right to have their deportation reviewed in court. And if they could show that they had been in the US for over seven years, had good moral character, and could prove that the hardship imposed on their children by their deportation would be extreme, they could the obtain residency. For forty years parents of American children had this right. But no longer. Reyes says, “Congress shut down all the ways to obtain legal residency and that’s why the number of undocumented immigrants has increased.”
Gragilia, Diego. “Group Representing 600 Children of Immigrants Sues President Obama.” Feet in Two Worlds: Telling the Stories of Today’s Immigrants. 1 Feburary 2009 <>
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