“I was out for supper when the call came in,” Ryan explained. “Will Bristol took it. But Miguel Garcia realized the significance of it and sent me a text. I thought it was potentially problematic enough that we should talk.”
“Indeed,” McShane said. “What did they want?”
“They wanted the whereabouts of a former student who worked at the newsroom four years ago, Teresa Valdez. We do not have that information,” Ryan said. “But what alarmed me, is that they called asking for it three hours after she dropped by the newsroom to visit.”
John Cooper looked at him with narrowed eyes as if he knew Ryan was withholding information. Which he was.
McShane frowned. “Do you have undocumented students writing for you? Was Teresa Valdez? This Miguel? Are there students at risk if ICE looks closely at you?”
“No one on payroll is undocumented, of course. I don’t know of anyone who is a writer or taking our intro class. You would know better than I do about them,” Ryan pointed out. “When Teresa was on staff, she was paid, and she had a social security card and proof of birth necessary to do that. Miguel? He’s a Hispano.”
“Really,” McShane said with interest. “I’d like to talk to him sometime about his family.”
“I’m not familiar with the term,” Cooper admitted. “Unless you mean Hispanic.”
Ryan explained that Miguel’s family had been in northern California since before California was a state. “He’s like fourth generation American,” Ryan said. “Been here longer than probably any of our families.”
“That is interesting,” Cooper said. “So, do you have other Latinos on payroll?”
Ryan shrugged. “Joe Castro is the photo editor, but he’s third generation. Doesn’t even speak Spanish, which is a real shame. But his family wanted to assimilate.”
“But they were asking about Teresa Valdez? Someone who left the university years ago, if I understood you correctly?” McShane said with a frown. “Simply because she visited here? And how did they know that?”
“Exactly,” Ryan said. “I may be paranoid, but after the events of the last week, I think I deserve the right to be a bit paranoid.”
McShane snorted.
“Why was she here, Ryan? What aren’t you telling us?” Cooper asked.
Ryan hesitated. He would have liked to have kept Rafael out of it, but he saw that he wasn’t going to be able to.
“This is a bit of a shock to me,” he admitted. “But... Teresa and I were a couple back then. And she came by to introduce me to my son.”
McShane sat back in his chair, and Cooper’s eyes widened.
“That must have been a shock,” Cooper said. “Was she sure you were the father?”
Ryan shrugged. “If you saw him, you wouldn’t have any doubts. And she had paperwork attesting to it, including his birth certificate. She left him with me.”
The other men were silent.
“So, you now have a what 3-year-old to care for?” McShane said at last. “Why did she do that?”
Ryan nodded, knowing that McShane was putting the pieces together. “Apparently as Trump has given ICE directives to be more aggressive in rooting out undocumented immigrants, ICE found her family. Her attorney has been working to give her legitimacy but has been unsuccessful. Rafael is legally a citizen, of course, having been born here. But she was worried that ICE would take her, and he would have no one. Her family is partly legal, partly sin papeles. So, she came here.”
Cooper looked grim. McShane tapped his fingers on the table, something Ryan had seen him do before when he was considering the ramifications of something.
And if there was one thing McShane was good at it was discerning the political ramifications of things, Ryan thought, a bit cynically.
“And your fear is?” McShane asked finally
“My fear is ICE will not accept our denial of knowing where she is,” Ryan said. “And that there are things that they might do to put pressure on the university or on us. What would happen if they did an audit of university enrollment and student employment?”
McShane made a face. “I think we’re well within tolerance,” he said. “But it would be time consuming.” He looked at Ryan curiously. “How do you know about audits?”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I read The Chronicle each week,” he said, referring to The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Of course, I know.”
“Of course, you read it,” McShane muttered.
Oregon state law dictated undocumented students could attend state institutions of higher education. Federal law, however, stipulated they could not receive financial aid, or be employed within the university. All of which made Ryan furious, as it did so many other people who had to deal with it. Most of these students had lived in the United States since they were very young. Often, they were the students most deserving of financial aid, and the university’s hands were tied — the newsroom’s hands were as well — and couldn’t provide it.
That had led to the Dream Act, but it was blocked by a Republican-controlled Senate. President Obama then created DACA by executive order to give these kids a pathway to citizenship. Trump had decimated the program, and in spite of a court order, new applications for DACA weren’t being accepted.
“If Teresa had known she was undocumented when she came to PSU, she could have applied for DACA,” Ryan said. “But she didn’t know. That’s not uncommon either.”
McShane nodded his head. Cooper just looked interested.
A lot of children discovered they were undocumented when they tried to apply for a social security card and found out they were actually born in Mexico. Some families had managed to obtain forged documents for the children they brought in so that they didn’t even learn of it then.
“But Teresa said she didn’t know when ICE showed
