She’s a self-described die-hard Republican. But her husband could be sent back to Mexico under former President Donald Trump’s vow of mass deportations if he were to win the election. So which candidate will she choose?
That’s what Georgia resident Tracy Gonzalez said is the question of the hour for her on this Election Day.
But the answer for her is not that simple.
“I’m at a loss for words today because I really thought by today I would know what I was going to do and I still don’t know this morning,” Gonzalez told Scripps News on the morning of Election Day.
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Gonzalez and her husband – who she described as her life partner and best friend – have been married since 2011.
Her husband entered the country from Mexico for the first time in 1999, then again in 2006 after having to briefly return to his home country for a family emergency. Gonzalez said that created something called a break in his bar, which means he would have to spend 10 years outside of the U.S. before being eligible to ask for a pardon for residency.
Gonzalez said she and her husband have been working with an immigration attorney since 2008 and a run-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Savannah, Georgia led to more complications.
Now, she said her husband has what is called an administratively closed deportation which essentially stops the process of deportation and allows him to have temporary legal status under a work permit that they have to renew annually.
The problem is, Gonzalez said, that it does not give her husband a path to residency or citizenship.
“People tend to have this vision that when you marry an American citizen you automatically have a pathway to citizenship and it’s just not so,” Gonzalez told Scripps News.
But Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris has vowed to keep families together with her plans to address immigration. And President Joe Biden signed an executive order earlier this year aimed at helping the 28 million mixed-status families in the U.S. together, according to the bipartisan immigration reform organization FWD.
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On the other side, Trump has repeatedly promised mass deportations of people who are not in the U.S. legally.
Gonzalez said she was raised in a conservative household that has always voted Republican. She also owns a bail bond company and said Democrats don’t typically support her business.
“My husband, God bless him, he supports me. Anything and everything that I do. And he just tells me to do what I think is right,” said Gonzalez.
