Betsy & Sal

Country of Origin: Italy

Currently LIving In:

Besty Acquista has become an activist for the rights of the American children of immigrants. Her family is profiled in the FFF Amicus Brief to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, submitted in Spring 2007. Below is an excerpt:

The Acquista family is forced to make a terrible choice – lose their husband and father Sal from their lives, or leave behind their lives and loved ones in the United States in order to remain together with Sal when he is deported. Betsy, Sal’s wife of twenty years, has decided to keep the family intact. So when Sal is deported, she will have to uproot their three citizen children who were born and raised in New York, and separate them from their many relatives and friends, to move them to Italy, a country they have never seen.

Charles (17 years old), James (14), and Emily (12) Acquista have spent their lives in New York, and have never been outside of the United States. Their father Sal has not left the United States since coming to New York from Italy at age 9, nearly 40 years ago. The children have grown up in the Acquistas’ family home on a quiet street in Queens, attending local schools and participating in sports and other activities in the neighborhood. The Acquista children have enjoyed the company and support of Sal’s large extended family in New York. Their father Sal was very involved in their lives, teaching them sports, coaching their little league teams, and spending time with them at home. He also provided for them financially, as co-owner of a communications company that he helped build into a successful small business. Despite being a hard-working family man, Sal made one serious mistake – he was arrested and pled guilty to a marijuana distribution charge, and was sentenced to nearly five years in prison. This arrest was the only contact Sal ever had with the criminal justice system.

Charles, James, and Emily only partly understood what had happened to their father when he was incarcerated. Betsy simply told them that he had made a mistake and was making amends for it, and that when he finished he would come home and things would go back to normal. The family visited him and talked to him on the phone as often as they could. Betsy had no idea that Sal’s conviction carried any immigration consequences. Sal had entered a drug rehabilitation program, which if successfully completed would have taken a year off his sentence. The family eagerly looked forward to his release. But much to their shock, less than a year before Sal would have been released, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent him a notice informing him that he was not a citizen and thus was deportable for his conviction, and that he would be detained upon completion of his criminal sentence. Betsy remembers sadly that it was Father’s Day when Sal told her the bad news. As a result of the ICE determination, Sal was taken out of the rehabilitation program, held in solitary confinement for two weeks, transferred out of the program’s minimum-security facility, and deemed no longer eligible for early release.

Betsy had to face the daunting task of breaking this news to her children, that their father would not be released soon, and that instead of returning home upon his release, he would be deported to Italy. She told them they would fight for him, but that there was a strong possibility that they would have to leave New York and move to Italy in order to remain a family. She is not certain how Italy would accept them into their country. The Acquista children miss their father and want to be reunited with him, but the idea of having to leave New York for another country is unimaginable to them. Betsy says they are in denial about the possibility of being forced to leave. Understandably, they are fearful of attempting to adjust to a country where none of them speak the language, uprooted in the middle of their formative years to an unfamiliar culture and lifestyle. Betsy started family therapy because the children are having trouble talking about the situation. In one emotional session, the therapist tried to assure Betsy that the children would be able to forgive her if they have to leave the country. The next day Emily, a budding poet, wrote a poem called “Ode to New York,” describing what she loved about her hometown. Emily did not realize the connection at the time, but Betsy recognized it immediately.

While the Acquistas have no family ties, contacts, or prospects in Italy, they would have to leave behind their many close relatives in the United States. Betsy and the kids are in close contact with Sal’s extended family in the New York area, who have been there to help Betsy take care of the children. Betsy was born in the U.S. and has many relatives on her side in the northeast, some of whom have serious health problems and depend on Betsy for emotional and financial support. Betsy’s mother has Alzheimer’s; her brother has Parkinson’s Disease and has five children.

Sal has now completed his sentence in federal prison. He will not enjoy the homecoming that the Acquista family had planned, but was instead was transferred directly to immigration detention where he awaits his presumed mandatory deportation. He will have no opportunity to show a judge how deportation will harm his family. Thanks in part to the family therapy, the Acquista children speak more freely now about their frustration with what is happening to their father. They attend public events with Betsy in support of immigrants’ rights. Charlie says that his father “should not have to pay for his crime twice,” and James believes that “it should be a crime for the U.S. to deport” his father. But it is still difficult for the children to talk about how it affects them, potentially being forced to leave home in order to keep their father in their lives. Because of mandatory deportation, many families like the Acquistas must agonize over impossible decisions about their futures, knowing that there is no chance under current law to prevent the deportation.