A mom's hard choice after a pot farm raid

To avoid jail, deported fieldworker has to take U.S.-born kids with her

- By Patrick J. McDonnell

MODESTA MATÍAS AQUINO with her children at the Central del Norte bus station in Mexico City.

Modesta Matías Aquino was working her regular morning shift — 3 a.m. till noon — at the Glass House Farms in Camarillo, caring for rows of marijuana plants.

Among her coworkers on the morning of July 10 were two of her daughters, ages 16 and 19.

“With everything going on, with the raids, there had been rumors that something bad might happen,” Matías recalled.

About 9 a.m., she said, phalanxes of masked agents in tactical vests sealed off the sprawling compound.

Matías and her daughters were among more than 300 undocumented immigrants — including at least 10 minors — who, according to U.S. authorities, were detained at a pair of Glass House sites.

The raids, like other such operations across the United States, split many so-called mixed-status families, those with both U.S.-born citizens — often children — and undocumented relatives, typically one or both parents.

Matías' family life is, by any definition, complicated, including seven daughters in all. Her two youngest daughters, ages 2 and 5, are U.S. citizens, born in California. Her 2-year-old grandson -the child of Matías 16-year-old daughter-is also a native Californian. So when Matías was held in a federal lockup in downtown Los Angeles, she faced a momentous choice - one that would mark her family for life.

Matías, 43, could accept removal to Mexico. But that might effectively banish her from returning to the United States, where she had toiled as a fieldworker for most of the past quarter-century and where she had deep family ties.

THE FAMILY of Modesta Matías Aquino decided to return to Mexico rather than fight her deportation.