Juana Flores is coming home. After an appeal to Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Congressmember Salud Carbajal succeeded in securing a one-year humanitarian parole for the Goleta resident and mother of 10. And just in time for her birthday on June 9.
Flores and her husband, Andres Flores, had raised their family in Goleta over the past three decades, but an entry in her immigration record from 1999 was used to block her return several years ago. Flores had visited Mexico to see her mother before she died and attend her funeral in 1999. As she returned to the United States, she was stopped and turned back on an administrative deportation. However, one of her sons had a disabling condition that required medications that only his mother could get him to take. Flores was able to return and remain on a humanitarian waiver. But in 2019, the Trump administration suspended her waiver and deported her, despite her family’s pleas.
Ever since, her family, retired Judge Frank Ochoa, attorney Kraig Rice, and a group of people dubbed “Team Juana” have attempted to reunite her with her family. This reached a climax late last year when her son, Caesar, a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, received orders assigning him to Turkey. He and his wife decided that she and their two-month-old daughter would stay with family in Goleta, but he wanted his mother home to help raise her. The little girl is one of 18 grandchildren awaiting Juana Flores’s return.