San Benito, Texas (CNN) —Raul Rodriguez says he’ll never forget the moment he realized his life was built on a lie.
It all began in April 2018 when federal investigators showed him a Mexican birth certificate with his name on it.
His confirmed what Rodriguez had feared as soon as he saw the paperwork. The US birth certificate he’d used for decades was fraudulent. Rodriguez wasn’t a US citizen. He was an undocumented immigrant.
Rodriguez says he had no idea he’d been born in Mexico before his father’s confession that day, but he knew immediately how serious the situation was. He’d spent nearly 2 decades working for the US government at the border.
He’d helped deport thousands of people while working for US Customs and Border Protection & for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
He lost his job at CBP, his friends in law enforcement, his sense of self. He hasn’t seen his father since that day in April 2018 & says he never wants to speak with him again.
Rodriguez knew deportation to Mexico would mean leaving his wife, & children & 5 grandchildren behind.
Rodriguez says years of federal background checks never turned up his Mexican birth certificate. It only came to light when Rodriguez filed a visa application for his brother..
The CBP fired him in 2019 because he wasn’t a US citizen & therefore no longer met the requirements to work as an officer.
Rodriguez is no longer working & relies on the disability benefits he receives due to a head injury sustained during his time in the Navy.
In November a judge had said she planned to rule in his favor & grant him cancellation of removal. But the law allows only 4,000 of those cases to be approved each year.
It could be years before he has a document declaring he’s in the country legally & years after that until he’s able to become a US citizen.
He knows this is his best shot for staying in the country; a previous application for citizenship through his wife was rejected.
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