Citizenship oath ends an ordeal

A high-profile deportation saga turned into a story of survival

Daisy Diaz wore a tailored suit and a serious expression as she rose to take her oath of U.S. citizenship Friday.

She gave no sign, with her businesslike demeanor, that this was the end of a 22-year struggle that almost landed her and her husband back in war-torn El Salvador, which they had fled.

"I don't think we could ever live long enough to thank this country," she said shortly after the ceremony at Raleigh's new convention center, where about 1,000 people were made citizens. "I had nothing to offer, and people opened their doors to me."

Diaz and Jose Frederico Campos became local celebrities in Chapel Hill a decade ago, when Campos was suddenly deported back to the tumult of his homeland, leaving Diaz to care for five children, one with a serious neurological condition.

They had fled their country in the mid-1980s to escape a bloody civil war that killed tens of thousands, and had been fighting for the right to remain legally in the United States. They were given temporary protected status when they first entered the country, but it eventually expired.

In 1998, Campos went to an immigration office in Charlotte, thinking he was about to receive permanent residency. Instead, he was arrested, jailed and shipped out of the country. Diaz was left without health insurance or the income to cover her bills.

Now, deportations are relatively common, and hundreds of families with young children have been separated by arrests as local, state and federal officials crack down on illegal immigration. But at the time, such severe actions by federal immigration officials were virtually unheard of.

"It was so seemingly arbitrary and capricious," said the Rev. Stephen Elkins-Williams, priest of Chapel of the Cross Episcopal Church that the family now attends. "All of a sudden, we have a mother trying to raise five children on her own."

When their story hit the local newspapers, the people of Chapel Hill began collecting money for the family and rallying for Campos' return. Town leaders wrapped trees in yellow ribbons; the school her children attended helped pay off the trailer where they lived; church leaders adopted the family.

Advocates pestered politicians and federal officials until they agreed to return Campos to the United States, agreeing that his absence caused a hardship to his U.S. citizen children.

Campos returned to Chapel Hill six months after his deportation, and he and Diaz were granted permanent residency. Campos and three of his children watched his wife become a citizen Friday. He said he will soon apply for his citizenship, too.

Molly McConnell, a longtime advocate for the family, said they have become important members of the community -- and a part of her family.

"We are so joyful," she said of Diaz's citizenship. "They are such wonderful people, and they have worked their fannies off. If you believe in hospitality to strangers and compassion, you just could not have walked away from this family."

The couple now owns a home in Chapel Hill, and both work two full-time jobs. He is a construction worker, and she doubles as a nursing assistant and an interpreter at Duke Hospital.

Most days, Diaz said, she goes to work at 7 a.m. and finishes about midnight. But she says she has no complaints.

She has a son beginning his freshman year at Greensboro College, and three more who hope to attend. Those kinds of hopes would have been lost had the family returned to El Salvador.

"We wouldn't call that a life," Diaz said of the experience her family might have had in El Salvador. "It would just be living, surviving."