Illegal Alien Mother of 8 Wins Delay of Deportation

Federal immigration officials today granted a temporary deportation reprieve to a Mexican woman who they say received welfare and had eight children while illegally in the United States.

But 32-year-old Hilda Tovar must leave the country by Jan. 15, and there will be no further extensions, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said.

She must decide by then what to do with her children, ages 17 months to 13 years, who are American citizens and free to stay in the United States.

“If I have to go, I plan to come back, illegally or however,” Tovar said in an interview. “I think if I have to hide here from immigration, it’s better than living there (Mexico). They’ll (the children) die of hunger there.”

Tovar already has been granted several delays, INS District Director Ruth Anne Myers said.

“While it sounds like a heartwarming story from one side, I would also look at the financial side, the expense to American taxpayers,” Myers said. “It’s a sad case, but one of many, many, many others. That’s the problem.”

Tovar acknowledged that she has depended on federally subsidized housing, welfare and food stamps. She said she has never married and that the father of the first five children refuses to help support them and the father of the other three wants to get married, but she has refused because he also is an illegal alien.

People facing deportation may receive permission to stay in the country after proving they have not left the United States in seven years. However, Tovar was apprehended in 1981 by a U.S. Border Patrol agent while entering the United States along the New Mexico border.

Tovar said the agent discovered she was an illegal alien by ordering her to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. She said she never had heard of it.