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Sunday is the best time of the week for 11-year-old Rose Huitzil. It's the day her whole family spends together:
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Rose, her four younger siblings and her parents.
On a recent Sunday they're celebrating two of the children's birthdays with ice-cream cake.
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All the kids made wishes, including 8-year-old Maylee.
ACT Maylee
Time:16
I should have wished that immigration to end soon. I don't like it when they take away our fathers. That's not very nice.
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Some VOCABULARY about immigration confuses Rose and her siblings.
But they DO understand that their father is an illegal immigrant from Mexico.
They also know their dad almost got taken away last fall when, Rose says, several immigration agents knocked on their door early one morning.
ACT Rose
Time :09
They said they were looking for a man. So our dad got scared and we got scared. I felt they were going to take him away.
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The family refused to open the door and Rose's father went into hiding for a while.
ACT
Rose2
Time: 06
We were all like alone. We felt how it would have been without our father.
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As federal authorities deport more illegal immigrants, more children like Rose are left without their fathers or mothers.
A bill introduced by U.S. Representative Jose Serrano, a Democrat from the Bronx, would let immigration judges consider those children's interests before ordering their parents' deportation. It's called the Child Citizen Protection Act.
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At a recent rally for the bill outside Senator Charles Schumer's Manhattan office, Rose called for the Democrat Senator to introduce the bill.
ACT Rose3
Time :09
How will five little kids like me survive alone with only our mommy? I can't pay attention in school because I'm always thinking of what can happen.
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Earlier this year, the New York City Council passed a resolution in support of the act.
Council Member Joel Rivera, a Democrat from the Bronx, was one of the sponsors.
ACT Rivera
Time :04
It would really humanize a system that is really inhumane as it is today.
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Betsy Dewitt believes that her husband would not have been deported last year, if a judge could have considered their children.
Dewitt's husband came to the United States legally from Italy as a child. He married Dewitt, a US citizen.
After the couple had three children, he was convicted of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, served his prison sentence and then was deported. Dewitt believes the judge's hands were tied.
ACT Dewitt1
Time :10
I'm not positive an immigration judge would have allowed him to stay, but at least it would have been the opportunity to make an argument.
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The bill would turn children into human shields, according to Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
ACT Mehlman1
Time :07
It says to parents if you come to United States illegally and have a child in United States, that children will protect you from ever being deported.
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Mehlman says illegal immigrants who break the law have to suffer the consequences.
ACT Mehlman2
Time :10
Whatever damage occurs to their family members, and certainly we all regret that, but whatever damage occurs is their responsibility, not the responsibility of the law.
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For 11-year-old Rose Huitzil, the most important thing is for her family to stay together.
ACT Rose4
Time :03
Just be together. And have a good time in our lives.
She's lived her whole life in the Bronx and has never been to Mexico. But if her father is deported, Rose wants her family to join him on the other side of the border.
This is Laura Isensee, Columbia Radio News.