Carol & Linden

Country of Origin: Guyana

Currently LIving In: New York

My name is Carol MacDonald. My husband Linden Corrica and I are Guyanese New Yorkers. We married ten years ago, and raised our daughter Natasha in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Last year Linden, a Rastafarian, was arrested with a joint. The lawyer told him to plead guilty, without warning that he could get deported.

A day after Linden began his two-week sentence at Rikers Island penitentiary, immigration officers came for him. They marked him for deportation, and transferred him to a Louisiana jail.

Immigration agents are stationed at Rikers to screen noncitizens -- including greencard-holders like Linden -- and hand them off for deportation. When Immigration detains and deports people after they finish their sentence, even for misdemeanors, that's double jeopardy.

Linden has now been in immigration prison for nine months -- eighteen times longer than the sentence he received for his underlying crime. He calls home every week from detention. Once no one heard from him for a month because he was put in solitary. In January, our daughter Natasha picked up a letter from her father, postmarked from Louisiana. She said, "Mommy, where is Louisiana?" I had to lie and say it was in Guyana.

Raising a daughter without any help is a struggle. Natasha got sick last week and begged "Mommy, I need you, I need you. Don't leave." She started to throw up. No matter how much it hurt, I had to send her to school and go to work as a home health aid. Our landlord tried to evict us three days before Christmas because he wanted more money. We had to fight to stay in the apartment, and must now pay a higher rent.