Metro man hopeful new immigration plan will help prevent families from going through what he has

WSBTV.com News Staff
·2 min read
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A Roswell father who is living apart from his wife in Mexico is calling President Joe Biden’s new immigration plan a game changer.

Jason Rochester’s 11-year-old son Ashton has lived apart from his mother for more than six years now.

He says he hopes that the president’s plan to extend a path to citizenship helps hundreds of thousands of families like his.

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Rochester said he’s hopeful after Biden announced Tuesday that in the coming months, his administration will allow certain US citizens without legal status in the US to apply for permanent residency - and eventually citizenship - without having to leave the country.

“I’m happy for the people that it will be helping,” Rochester said.

During the time they’ve been separated, Ashton battled and beat cancer without his mom by his side.

“Very difficult. It’s been a lot of work to try to maintain a normal life for my son, and myself,” Rochester said. “And no mother should ever have to deal with that. Being outside of the country and not being able to be with their child.”

His wife, Cecilia Gonzalez-Carmona, was undocumented and self-deported to Mexico in 2018 after getting bad legal advice.

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Although the president’s plan won’t help his family, Rochester plans to use it to bolster his fight to reunite them.

“I’m hoping that they will implement more families into this executive action. I’m hoping that they will see that there are families like mine that are still separated,” Rochester said.

Rochester has visited Washington, DC nearly half a dozen times over the past few years asking for help.

Republicans criticized the president’s new policy calling it a “mass amnesty plan” and anticipating the courts would strike it down.

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