Marisela Vallejos arrived in Nicaragua from Miami on American Airlines Flight 969 on Jan. 28. It was the worst trip of her life. There were no words of consolation that could alleviate the grief she felt after having been torn away from her children. On that Wednesday afternoon, Vallejos became another casualty of our country's broken immigration system. She joined the ranks of thousands of immigrants who have been deported for being in the U.S. illegally while their U.S.-born children stay behind.

Vallejos' suffering was exacerbated by knowing that her kids -- Cecia, 12, and Ronald, 7 -- had gone on a hunger strike to try to prevent her deportation. For 48 hours, they stood vigil outside the Pompano Beach, Fla.,  detention center where their mother had been held since mid-December pending her appeal. But it was no use. Not their sacrifice, nor the efforts of local politicians to intercede in the case was enough to stop the deportation. Their mother left without even being allowed to say goodbye.

Like most cases of immigrants facing deportation, hers is complex. She crossed the border illegally with her young daughter more than a decade ago to join her husband, who was already in the U.S. They believed that the family would be able to legalize their status under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act, known as NACARA. The measure, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1997, was meant to provide immigration benefits and relief from deportation to certain Central Americans, Cubans and citizens of the former Soviet Union, including their dependents. What Vallejos and her husband never expected was that their case would be rejected, that she would receive a deportation order and that her four-year appeal process would prove fruitless.

I wonder if this is the kind of case that President Barack Obama had in mind when he answered my question on whether he would consider a moratorium on immigration raids. “Well, one of the things I'm going to have Janet Napolitano do is to review what we have done. What's successful, what's not successful,” he responded. “No matter what, I want to make sure that we are operating in a way that is consistent with our values, that is humane. I don't want to see mothers torn away from their children because of policies that have not been well thought through and are not ultimately going to be the key source of us solving the immigration problem.”

Napolitano just took over the Department of Homeland Security, and it's not clear if she already has had the time to “review what we have done” to determine what works and what doesn't, but one thing she's made clear is that she wants “criminal aliens” off the streets. In one of her first comments on the immigration issue, she said she is looking at existing immigration enforcement programs to see if taxpayer are getting “the most bang for their buck.”

The new head of immigration told reporters and customs enforcement officials that her goal is to know whether an inmate is in the country illegally so he or she can be deported immediately after serving his or her sentence. She said she also would be going after criminal fugitives who are in the country illegally. The question is if people like Vallejos and her husband, whose alleged “crime” was to come to the U.S. in search of a better life, will be considered “criminals.” And whether the deportation of Vallejos, who was torn away from her U.S.-born children, is considered “humane and consistent with our values.”

Alfonso Oviedo, the immigration attorney representing Vallejos, thinks there is still legal recourse. The judge did not accept medical records that proved they were in the country during the time stipulated by NACARA because they came from a private clinic and the list of valid examples asked for county or municipal records. Oviedo believes that the words “not limited to” included in the law broadens the possibility of acceptable documentation, although he recognizes that his claim to the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen the case has only a 50-50 chance of succeeding.

There are high hopes that the inadequate immigration system will be repaired under the new government. So far, it's business as usual. An immigration reform that opened the way to legalization for law-abiding, tax- 
paying undocumented immigrants could have saved Marisela Vallejos from being deported, and her children would not have to be suffering the burden of being separated from their mother.

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(Maria Elena Salinas is the author of “I AM MY FATHER'S DAUGHTER: LIVING A LIFE WITHOUT SECRETS.” Reach her at www .mariaesalinas.com)

© 2009 by Maria Elena Salinas

Distributed by King Features Syndicate