Beloved Elementary School Employee Fights To Remain In U.S.

Members of an elementary school community are joining forces to help their friend and neighbor who is in danger of being deported.

Everyone at Dora Erickson Elementary School in Idaho Falls has wonderful things to say about Hermalinda Orellana, who works in the cafeteria there.

When people found out that Orellana had only days before she would be deported back to Guatemala, they started doing everything they could to make sure that would not happen.

The halls of Erickson are teeming with some 470 kids.

They walk past posters that line the walls with positive moral messages. “Lend a helping hand,” one sign reads.

It’s a lesson students are about to learn firsthand.

Orellana (or as the kids call her, “Lady Banana,” because of a memorable Halloween costume she once wore) is about to lose her legal immigrant status and get sent back to her native Guatemala.

“She’s worked hard, been a productive person, paid all of her own bills, paid all of her medical bills for her and her family,” said Erickson Principal John Murdoch of Orellana. “She’s never used the welfare system in any way or form.”

Orellana first arrived in the United States in 1996 on a tourist visa. Two years later, she was granted political asylum. She worked legally in the U.S. and even returned briefly to Guatemala.

When she reapplied for political asylum in 2008, she was denied.

“I never disappointed the law,” said Orellana. “I don’t have [traffic] tickets. I have two jobs. I work hard.”

Then, in October of this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement told Orellana she had until Dec. 11 to leave the country.

“I want to stay for my daughters here,” Orellana said.

The move would be especially tough for Jimena, Orellana’s 7-year-old daughter with a seemingly permanent smile on her face.

She’s a U.S. citizen, a straight-A student at Erickson, loves to do ballet and wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

“I wasn’t born [in Guatemala],” Jimena said. “I don’t know how to write in Spanish. I don’t know how to read in Spanish. I’m afraid to go to school there.”

The school does not want to see that happen to Jimena, her mother and Orellana’s other daughter, 12-year-old Camilla.

So, it circulated a petition. It contains hundreds of signatures from students and staff. It will be sent along with a letter, signed by Murdoch, to Sen. Mike Crapo.

His staff told Murdoch that they would look into the case.

“It seems that it’s like in this case we’re wasting some resources on an immigrant that we wish every immigrant would be,” Murdoch said.

If anything, Orellana hopes to obtain Deferred Action Status from the ICE, so that Jimena and Camilla can finish out the school year.