MPS Teacher’s Aide Files For Stay of Deportation

Yessenia Ruano on May 30. Photo courtesy Voces de la Frontera.

Yessenia Ruano, a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher’s aide who was told to self deport, is asking that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) delay its decision commanding her to self-deport.

Ruano, who is originally from El Salvador, has been caught in deportation limbo since February when she went in for a check-in with immigration authorities during the first weeks of the new Trump administration. On Friday, ICE told her she needed to leave the country by June 3.

But her attorney Marc Christopher has filed a request for a stay of deportation with ICE. The stay, if awarded, would halt deportation proceedings and allow her to remain in the country. However, while it is under review, she could still be deported by ICE, according to a statement released by Christopher & De León Law Office.

Ruano fled violence and poverty in El Salvador in 2011. Her brother, who stayed behind, was murdered in 2017, she said following her meeting with ICE Friday. Ruano said she was trafficked across the U.S. border by human smugglers called coyotes and two months ago she has applied for a special U.S. visa for persons that have been human trafficked: a T visa.

She said she did not receive confirmation from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that the agency received her application for the T visa until Wednesday.

Ruano has lived in the U.S. for more than a decade. She has two children who are U.S. citizens. She works as a teacher’s aid at the bilingual MPS charter school Academia de Lenguaje y Bellas Artes (ALBA), 1712 S. 32nd St.

After President Donald Trump took office, Ruano was scheduled for a check-in with immigration authorities. Fearing deportation, she went public with her situation with the help of Voces de la Frontera, a local community organization that advocates for immigrant rights. Protestors and activists accompanied Ruano to the meeting in February, which could have ended with her detention.

“Ms. Ruano is overwhelmed with gratitude for the compassion and support so many have shown,” according to the statement from her attorney. “She has survived unimaginable trauma and still found the strength to give so much to her community, especially to the many area students whose lives she’s touched. All we ask is that she be allowed to stay—at least until her T Visa is decided—so she is not sent back into the very danger she fled.”

A fundraiser, promoted by Voces, has been set up for Ruano. It is raising funds to help her “cover emergency relocation costs, secure safe housing, support her daughters during this painful separation, and begin again — safely and with dignity.”