10 Tahoe Trap (10 page)

“Mr. McKenna...” she hesitated again, thinking about how to proceed.

“Owen, please,” I said.

“If you learned something that would put a person at risk of having the authorities come after them, even if they’d done nothing wrong, would you feel compelled to report them?”

“I already know that Paco is an illegal immigrant, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’m not about to call the border patrol. I know that he has no family.”

“So I don’t have to worry about you making trouble. Then there’s something else you should know before you start calling the social service agencies.”

“What’s that?”

“Paco doesn’t exist.”

TWELVE

“Paco doesn’t exist?” I repeated. “In what way?”

“In every way but the physical. He has never been in the data banks. The state doesn’t know about him. While many local people know Paco, he doesn’t officially exist in county records, either. He’s a classic illegal immigrant, more invisible than most.”

“So Cassie isn’t really his foster mom.”

“No, Cassie is most definitely his foster mom, in the truest and most important sense. She takes care of him and gives him a home and does it simply because it’s the right thing to do.”

“But she is not part of the state’s program.”

“Correct. She gets no money.”

“Why doesn’t she go through the normal channels? The state would help, correct?”

“My understanding is that it would be a possibility. But it is likely that the state would send out a case worker who would be required to report that Cassie is always working, that Paco is always working, which is clearly in violation of child labor laws, that Paco has no standard home life, that Paco has so little homework guidance that he hasn’t even learned to read, that Paco barely passes some of his subjects and fails others, that Paco often comes home from school to an empty house, and that the house is substandard by any measure.

“That same case worker would note that in the spring and fall, Paco is mostly absent from school because Cassie works him harder on the farm than any child should work. And in the last several months, Paco has been busy helping her with the new delivery service that she’s started. In fact, my sense is that Paco works harder than nearly any adult I know. In many ways, this is not the way a child should live. Yet, it works for Paco.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. “You make it sound like Paco is a child slave.”

Pam Sagan still had her elbows on the desk. She raised up her hands so that the knuckles of her index fingers were against her chin.

“Paco used to get in trouble,” she said. “It started out as some simple vandalism. Throwing tomatoes against the school. At McDonald’s. Then it escalated. He ran with some bad kids. One night they threw stones at a passing police car. The officer had been a track champion in high school. He ran after them and caught Paco and two others. Our local police chief knew that Paco was illegal. But he took mercy. He told Cassie that he would not cite Paco but only under the condition that she make certain that he never had idle time again.”

Sagan took a breath, turned to look at a blank wall, then breathed out. She turned back to me.

“Paco has been in some other trouble as well. In my opinion, Cassie deserves credit for saving him. She made him a full-time worker in her business, taking him out of school as necessary. She made him work the production side of the business, the distribution side, and the retail side. And she paid him well. As I understand it, this boy has developed a good savings account. And, much as we’d like the boy to do better in school, he has turned himself around in many ways.”

Pam Sagan gave me a hard look.

She continued, “I believe that if Cassie hadn’t worked him so hard, he would have been pulled into the juvenile justice system. I don’t think that Paco has a natural leaning toward a criminal mind like some kids. But he is a natural street kid. If he’d been left to hang out with other kids on the street, I have no doubt that he would have gotten into serious trouble. I know the type because I’ve seen it too many times. He’s very young. But he was on track to something bad. He would eventually end up in custody and be deported.

“Of course, he’s technically here illegally,” she continued. “Many people would say a rule’s a rule and that he should have been deported years ago.”

Sagan looked down, moved her hands behind her desk in a way that seemed as if she were smoothing her pants on her thighs.

“I used to wonder about Cassie’s focus on making Paco work,” she said. “I don’t think she’s given him an ideal childhood this last year or so. But it’s clear to me and others that Cassie saved him. She taught him the value of hard work, and she taught him valuable skills that he’ll use for the rest of his life. Yes, she’s been doing it outside of the legal system. For all I know, she could be accused of harboring an illegal alien. But she’s done the right thing by the measure of something separate from the law. She deserves a medal, and the legislators who chant their slogans to get re-elected should have to answer to that separate thing.”

She looked at me. “Does that make any sense to you? Or do you think I’m nuts?”

“It makes sense,” I said. “Answer a hypothetical question, please. What if they didn’t deport him? What if they simply registered him as a foster child or whatever it is that they do?”

“If Paco were officially put into the foster program, he would be taken from Cassie’s care. She is not an official foster family. Because he is a willful child and not especially endearing, to say the least, it is unlikely they would find a new foster home for him. And even if they did, his foster parents would likely reject him after a time. He’d end up in an orphanage. It is not easy to find foster families for kids of any age and personality. But it is much harder for kids who aren’t young and charming.”

Sagan gave me a pleading look. I could see how much she cared.

“Paco has always lived here,” she said. “This is his community. His home. He’s not very likeable. In fact, he is one hard-case, tough kid. But he has some friends. His teachers and other community members look out for him. I try hard to insulate him from the forces out there in society that would look at him only as an illegal immigrant.”

“You think the state would put him in an orphanage,” I said. “Are you saying that he would also be deported?”

“It’s hard to say anything definite other than that it’s possible. Those of us who work with populations that have undocumented workers see how often somebody disappears. Sometimes we see it coming, witness a crime followed by an arrest, which is followed by the person being picked up by an Immigration Enforcement Agent. Next thing we know, they’re gone.”

“If Paco were deported, where would he end up?” I asked.

“Without a family in Mexico, he’d end up in a Mexican orphanage,” Sagan said. “Or on the street.”

“Paco told me he doesn’t speak Spanish. Would they speak English in an orphanage?” I asked.

“Don’t be naive. Maybe the odd worker would know some English. But Paco would basically be trapped in a world he doesn’t know, where he can’t communicate. It would be worse than prison.”

“If I called the sheriff,” I said, “or the local social service agency, or the local legislator – people who are knowledgeable about local, illegal immigrants – wouldn’t they agree with you? Wouldn’t they hesitate to do anything that might jerk Paco out of his hometown?”

Pam Sagan scoffed, shaking her head.

“All those elected or appointed officials will only speak on record, and they would tell you lies aimed at creating a sense that they are directed by compassion. The truth is that the U.S. routinely deports children to countries the children have never known, countries whose language is as foreign to the kids as Swahili probably is to you. And this country is deporting more people every year.”

“What about the amnesty programs that we hear about? The so-called Dream Act? Surely, there must be a program that Paco could fit into. Something that would give him legal residency if not citizenship.”

Sagan looked at me hard again. At that moment, I represented the enemy, those people who justify ripping apart kids’ lives because there is a legal line drawn in the sand.

“As I said, Paco has been in trouble. Regardless of the platitudes you hear about the system having built-in safeguards designed to create a fair system for kids like him, those of us who work in the Central Valley can tell you otherwise. And kids who have been in trouble the way Paco has are likely to be deported if they get picked up by Immigration Enforcement Agents. Because these kids have no family and no advocates with any power, once they are sent to Mexico, no one ever hears about them again. They are the silent victims. The government doesn’t tell their stories.”

“How many people know about this, that Paco is not actually in the files of the state agencies?”

“Well, several of us at this school, of course. The women who’ve taken care of him over the years. Several other people in the community. The local dentist and doctor. No doubt the parents of his friends, some of whom themselves are illegal aliens. And you should know that Paco isn’t the only kid in this situation. We have several in our school. I know other Central Valley educators who say that their schools have many undocumented kids.”

“Can you tell me about Paco’s history?” I said.

“We don’t actually know it in detail. From what I’ve heard, his mother brought him over the border when he was a baby. She came with him alone, and she told people that her boyfriend, Paco’s father, would be joining them soon. But the father never showed up. She worked in the vineyards picking grapes, carrying the baby in one of those back packs. But she died from some kind of infection.

“So the neighbor lady, who loved both Paco and Paco’s mother, took in the baby and raised him. She knew of course that Paco was not legal, so she kept quiet about it. Unfortunately, that woman eventually started to suffer from Alzheimer’s and had to go into a home. Fortunately, some other neighbor women who had a round-robin childcare for their kids put Paco into their rotation. He spent several years living at four different homes, switching among them as the schedules of the various families permitted.

“Eventually, the daycare circle dissolved, but one of those families took him in. They had a tumultuous home life, but at least Paco had a roof over his head. That family kept him until he began to get in trouble and became more withdrawn.

“This was around the time that Cassie got to know Paco. So she took him in shortly after he turned eight. She’s had him for a year and about eight months. No one knows what motivated Cassie to step forward just as others were tiring of the boy. Some might say that she saw that she could combine doing the right thing by the boy with acquiring a source of cheap labor.

“Either way, Cassie was the best thing that ever happened to Paco. Warm and fuzzy, no. Playful and fun, no. Quirky in her opinions and even a little strange, yes. But steady as a supertanker in rough seas. She gave Paco the one thing he’d never had, a calm life that he could count on.

“Unfortunately, Paco hasn’t been easy for her. Warm and fuzzy he’s not, either. Inside, I think he’s a good kid. But you’ve got to have a lot of faith to believe in him. He’s as stubborn and resistant to the world as a granite boulder. You want to teach that kid something, good luck. Unless he sees it as something he needs, he simply won’t pay attention. And, as you know, raising a child is very expensive. Cassie’s work ethic has made it so she can provide for herself even though she came from a disadvantaged background herself. But it was a real sacrifice to take on the expenses of a child. She’s a bit of a hero around here for not only taking Paco in, but doing it in violation of laws that show little favor for a child without citizenship in the very country where he grew up. And she has had to withstand some scorn, too.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Even this community has some people who are hard-liners who say that Paco is a Mexican and that he should be deported.”

“What about your school? How does that work without Paco having official records?”