The celebration Edgar Alaniz’s sister planned when his long-awaited residency documentation arrived should have been a clear path for him and his family last January.
Alaniz and Veronica Camey drove to Schuyler with their five sons to pick up the document and spend time with his family. His path was soon complicated by a disagreement with his brother that led to allegations, legal charges, all but a disturbing the peace charge being dismissed and court dates.
The document he had waited for allows Alaniz, a 32-year-old Schuyler High School alum who has lived in the United States for 30 years, to get a new job to better support his family and build Social Security savings.
But since Feb. 3, he has been jailed first with the sheriff’s office in Schuyler, and since April with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Camey said her husband is now held in a facility in Hardin County, Iowa, where he has formed a Bible study group, talks to his wife and sons as often as is affordable and, because he is one of just a few detainees fluent in English, assists others with their immigration cases.
They had high hopes he would be headed home after his most recent court date on Sept. 11 but now an Oct. 9 hearing has been scheduled so he can undergo the work readiness physical required for any change of status in the immigration system.
So they wait.
Camey was on her way to pick Alaniz up in April when their attorney called to say the judge’s documents had not arrived so she would have to wait longer.
Later Alaniz was instead detained by ICE in Antelope County west of Norfolk. He was moved to Dakota County in far northeast Nebraska for a few months.
Alaniz and Camey had planned to get married in February, when Alaniz’s divorce papers were completed, but like other Nebraska facilities, Dakota County does not allow that.
Alaniz was then moved to Hardin County in northeast Iowa, a five-hour drive from Seward. There they got married in May. Over the summer, Camey worked on paperwork to take Alaniz’s name.
“The last few weeks have been very hard for him,” Camey said Sept. 12.
The detainees in Hardin County are treated well compared to what he experienced in the other two locations. Detainees must pay to make phone calls and pay extra to Facetime with their families, and Camey said those fees have been increased.
They are hopeful that when Alaniz is released, he will be a permanent U.S. resident. Until then, she works with their attorney to show Alaniz is a good candidate to be released on bond.
“He already had a case going for 10 years,” Camey said.
But delays have complicated his process of becoming a permanent resident in the only country he knows.
“He did not know he was not a citizen until he was 15 and told his mom he needed his Social Security (card) to get a job,” she said.
Camey said they learned in April the residency document they celebrated receiving in January had actually been approved three years prior.
“We did not know about it,” she said.
She is confident that Alaniz will be able to get work quickly upon release.
“He is a very hard-working person,” she said.
Alaniz and Camey moved to Seward in late 2019 and 2020 from David City, and soon after Alaniz’s job with a lightning protection company ended due to the pandemic.
She and Alaniz have four sons together and full custody of Alaniz’s son from his first marriage. The five range in age from three to 12.
In recent years, the two have worked opposite shifts – she at Memorial Health Care Systems at night, and he at a few companies in the area on day shifts. Alaniz usually prepped the boys for bed and school the next day.
“That worked well for us,” she said.
Camey said they are a good match. They are the same age and both went to Schuyler High School, but did not meet until a friend introduced them years later.
“There is just something about him that I felt – that I know – that he was the person for me. We have been through a lot together. This is just another bump in the road that we have to conquer.
“I 100 percent believe that God sent me Edgar and put me in his path,” Camey said, noting that she used to pray to meet a man with whom she could raise a family.
She thinks the experience has strengthened her husband’s faith, too.
Camey has worked to keep everything going at home, and is appreciative that Alaniz’s father came to help her with the family. Her own father died in April.
“It has been very hard on me and the boys,” she said. “They have good days, and they have had bad days.”
Camey said she spent their $8,000 savings to pay off most of the original attorney’s fee of $10,000, and now there is another $5,000 to be paid.
She and the boys had a curbside “Lemonade for Love” stand in July with half the proceeds going to the attorney and half to Alaniz for his commissary and phone fees.
She is hoping to sell baked goods to keep raising money.
“It is a struggle to try to keep everything here afloat and keep him with some commissary and phone time to keep him sane,” she said.
Camey said she appreciates the Seward community and those who have reached out to her and her children.
She has friends she met at the lemonade stand, people she and Alaniz have worked with or for, church and school acquaintances who offer support and occasionally bring in a meal. Alaniz has stayed in touch with a pastor from Dakota County.
The support makes a difference.
“We haven’t been with the Seward community as long as some others for the amount of help we have gotten in the last six months,” she said.
Seward reminds her of the Schuyler community she grew up in after her family moved from California when she was 2 years old. She hopes to raise her children here the way her mother raised her.
She is working and praying for the day when Alaniz is home to share in that.
