In February 2025 he changed his life to César Reyes, originally from Quetzaltenango. He was deported and shared his case in a video that went viral on social networks. This took him from his family, made up of his wife, Yucia and his son, Sebastián, three years old. It will be the first year that he will not share the Father’s Day With your son.
Reyes was a member of the Guatemalan association in Oklahomahe worked and participated actively in cultural and social support events.
“I thought a lot to do this video or not. However, I think it is time to tell my experience so that I can help other people. On February 24, 2025 I was deported back to my Guatemala country. It was something really confusing because I was fighting my case to be able to legally stay in the United States … having no criminal record, that is, having a clean record, they did not mind separating myself from my family,” says the Guatemalan. He is currently rebuilding part of his life in Guatemala without losing contact with his family.
In the video he explains the moment of separation and hard of the process. Four months after this episode, talk to Free press About what happened later.
Start from scratch
Reyes got work in a call center in the country, its level of English and preparation was useful for this process. “Right now I have more stability and I have a job, so little by little I am trying to get used to this new lifestyle,” he shares while ensuring that the most complicated part is to be far from his own, his wife Julissa and his son Sebastian, although he says he is barely at the point of processing what happened.
His parents, migrants too, took him to him in 2011 to the United States to meet again as a family. At that time I was 16 years old.
He graduated from the middle cycle in the United States and remembers that his first job was in a restaurant. He then worked in a chain of hotels where he began as a receptionist and reached the position of management assistance, prior to deportation.
His wife also Guatemalan was his neighbor in his adolescence. Remember with special affection that at birth his son Sebastián in 2022 took three weeks of license to take care of his family. Part of his daily activities was to share with the child and play with him.
He expresses that this phase of first -time dad leaves many teachings, “we are discovering skills that we did not know what we had. Only when certain experiences arrive began to develop them. In addition, a very special link between father and son is created, a different love, a love that children gain little by little,” he says with nostalgia.
In the afternoon he went to the garden with the child to listen to nature and wants to invite parents to take advantage of time with their children. He is still communicating with his family by video calls, the child explains him and gives him game instructions, but assures that he is not enough and his heart shudders when he hears him say that he wants to see him and be with him. “Technology is just a small relief,” he reflects.
On this father’s day, the message that I want to share with all of us who are parents is that Let’s value every moment we spend with our children. I never imagined what I expected, especially in that appointment in which they informed me that they would separate me from my family.
“Sometimes we fall into the routine and take for granted daily life, but it is essential to take advantage of every moment with our children. Today we live with the phone in hand, from one place to another, but it is essential to dedicate quality time. It can be an hour, half an hour a day, but that is a moment without distractions, with visual contact, with hugs, tenderness.