MULTIMEDIA: Falling in love with an undocumented immigrant

I wrote the story and shot and produced the three videos in Norfolk, Va.

Bill Tiernan took the still images, Miranda Mulligan designed the flash package, and Kerry Sipe and the online team made sure it got published.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

See the package here, or read just the narrative below.

Uncertainty

Hands clasped, Agustin Fonseca Valerio and Maria Antonietta twirled on the checkered dance floor.

Bouncing beneath the psychedelic light beams, they held each other for several seconds. Then they parted. Together again. And then apart once more.

The lovers swerved their hips from side to side, syncing their movements to the thumping, bumping reggaeton basses and snares.

“Even though it’s up in the air what’s happening to them, they still enjoy themselves on a Saturday like most couples,” said Theresa Teran, Maria’s best friend.

The typical image of men and women like Agustin is of them toiling in the blistering heat on construction sites and farms, or as grist for debate on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” or on left- and right-wing blogs.

But what often goes unsaid is that right here in this country, in this community, they play, make friends and fall in love.

It was Aug. 18. Agustin and Maria were at Jalisco Mexican Restaurant and Tienda in Virginia Beach. (Note: Maria declined to have her last name published for this story; “Antonietta” is her middle name.)

Around 10 p.m. the eatery transformed into a full-fledged nightclub. The nachos, tortillas and pico de gallo were replaced with more Corona bottles and margaritas. Families were out the door, and in came couples, hot single men and women. Some dressed in clubbing wear: micro-miniskirts, body-tight tank tops, dress shirts and shoes. Others dressed down, donning baseball caps, faded T-shirts and grubby tennis shoes.

The intensity at the club went through the roof, as several dozen men and women packed the small dance floor. They grooved about indiscriminately – Hispanics, whites, Americans, residents, documented and undocumented immigrants.

It hurt Maria whenever she saw others in an intimate embrace. Many of the men had something her 25-year-old fiancé did not – legal status in the United States. Agustin crossed over the U.S.-Mexican border illegally to McAllen, Texas, in 2001. The baby in the family, Agustin left home when he was 18 years old in search of a better life, leaving behind his parents, two elder brothers and sisters.

“At the end of the day they can go home, and if they want to, get married, have a family, do everything they want to do,” said Maria, 23. “But what can we do?”

In October 2006, Agustin was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, marriage is not going to change Agustin’s immigration status.

For the past year, the couple have been stuck in limbo.

They received no word from immigration authorities about Agustin’s deportation trial. Then one Saturday morning, Sept. 15, a letter arrived. It was from the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

The wait was over.

–
The Meeting

It was June 2003. The two girls wanted to soak up the summer.

Maria Antonietta, dressed in a pair of lime green hibiscus boy shorts, a white surfboard shirt and a matching green tank top, was ready to hit the beach. She and her best friend, Theresa Teran, were going to do some girl-talk and snuggle their toes in the sand in East Ocean View.

As they pulled up to park their car in front of Maria’s boyfriend’s dingy blue apartment along the 1700 block of Kingston Ave., they saw the new Mexican guy sweeping the front porch.

Agustin Fonseca Valerio, a construction worker from Tamaulipas, had just moved in with Maria’s boyfriend.

He was skinny, with a waistline no larger than 27 inches. And he had a mullet.

“I just thought he was another goofy guy,” said Maria, a recent graduate of Virginia Wesleyan College.

Little did she know that he had fancied her from that very day.

“My stomach, like little flying things inside of me,” Agustin said. “When I see Maria the first time, my heart ‘boom, boom, boom’ real hard. I know when it’s love the first time.”

–

Two and a half hours before countdown on New Year’s Eve 2003, a small crowd had gathered at Agustin’s grungy red-brick West Ocean View apartment.

The cramped, dilapidated studio unit, which Agustin shared with four other illegal immigrants, boomed with reggaeton music. The place smelled of pollo and carne asada, freshly cut cilantro and onions, chili powder and pinto beans simmered in pork fat.

There were about 14 men, all of them illegal immigrants from Central America, and one woman, Maria.

Maria’s boyfriend was also at the party, but it wasn’t Agustin.

The guys teased Maria, calling her “gringa,” using it as a term of endearment. Maria is a Sicilian American whose Spanish vocabulary at that time was limited to “hola,” “adiós” and “cómo estás,” so she could not hold a steady conversation with anyone, much less her secret admirer, Agustin.

At 12:15 a.m., the crowd died down and started trickling out into the flurrying night. As Maria was about to leave the party with her boyfriend, she thanked and hugged Agustin.

“I love you,” whispered Agustin in English.

Startled, she replied, “Me too, as a friend.”

–
Falling in love

The first half of 2004 was like a telenovela for Maria Antonietta.

Her boyfriend accused her of having an affair with Agustin Fonseca Valerio, even though their relationship was strictly platonic. It turned out that Maria’s boyfriend was the one doing the cheating. In April, he left her for another woman.

Severely depressed, Maria partied four nights a week throughout May. She downed tequila shots regularly and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day.

After much convincing from family and friends, Maria moved back to live with her parents in June. It was then that Agustin courted her. He would hang out at her parents’ late at night to watch movies. And when Agustin was too tired to go home, Maria would allow him to sleep on her bedroom floor.

As the weeks progressed, the romantic tension increased.

Finally Maria mustered the courage to ask him, “Are you ever going to kiss me?”

He did, and they’ve been together since.

“In the beginning I used to think maybe we both just needed someone on the rebound,” said Maria, laughing. “But after three years it’s a little difficult to say that now.”

–
Separation

Entering and leaving Fort Eustis was never a problem for Agustin Fonseca Valerio.

He always managed to slip under the radar of security personnel when accompanying Maria Antonietta, who worked part-time to collect roofing service payments for her father. No one had ever questioned his nationality or asked to see a U.S. visa.

But Agustin was not so lucky one morning in October 2006.

He was with Maria at the Fort Eustis checkpoint, about 40 feet outside the main gate.

Dressed in a button-up Polo shirt, dark blue jeans and a new pair of honey-wheat-colored Timberland boots, Agustin did not look like someone who was going to lay shingles on a roof.

But that didn’t stop a security officer, conducting routine identification checks, from asking about his immigration status.

Agustin didn’t lie.

He confessed to crossing the border illegally. In 2001, Agustin and five other Central Americans each paid coyotes $2,000 to flee to Victoria, Texas. For two days, the men trekked on foot through the desert without food and clean water.

As Agustin was transported from Fort Eustis to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Norfolk, he thought about being deported and making that journey again.

“What going to happen when I’m coming back?” Agustin asked. “Only die.”

He thought he would never see Maria again.

At the ICE visitation room, the two lovers sat across from each other, separated by a thick glass divider.

Maria couldn’t stop crying. And Agustin was unable to reach out and wipe away her tears. It crushed him, watching her like this.

Before leaving the room, Maria slipped a wallet-size photograph of herself and her family through the metal slits attached to the glass divider.

“I love you,” she said. “I’ll come to Mexico to find you.”

–
Someday, one day

Maria Antonietta’s mother held the letter from the Executive Office for Immigration Review. It arrived Sept. 16, a few weeks short of a year from when Agustin Fonseca Valerio was arrested.

“Open it. Open it,” said Maria, anxiously.

The date had been set. Agustin is to attend a pre-hearing Oct. 16 at an immigration court in Arlington.

He pretends he’s not worried, Maria said.

“But I’m scared, you know,” she said. “Because I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The time frame for each case is different. It could take anywhere from a few weeks to several months before a judge makes a decision, said Susan Eastwood, spokeswoman for EOIR.

And if ordered removed, Agustin could appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and up to the U.S. Supreme Court. That would take another several months.

For now, all the lovers can do is wait.

Agustin said he still dreams about building a life with Maria: having several children and watching them play in a garden, in a home of their own, somewhere close to the water.

If not in the United States, then in Mexico. Maria said she will follow him back home if he is ordered to leave.

“I love one girl, one woman, that’s it,” Agustin said. “I want to be my life together with her, like everyone else.”

Maria too dreams about the future. She already has her eyes set on a white satin and taffeta wedding gown from David’s Bridal. With the dress model number in hand, she hopes to track it down for their big day someday.

She said Agustin’s attorneys have advised them to get married – that it might give him a stronger case in court.

But the couple are against it.

“We don’t want to run to the justice of the peace. We don’t want to get married just for papers,” Maria said. “We want a glorious wedding.”