DECLARATION OF JESUS FRANCISCO SALCIDO AGUIRRE

IN SUPPORT OF HIS APPLICATIONS I-360 AND AOS

I, hereby swear and affirm that the following declaration is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge, skill, and ability.

1. I was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, on September 9th, 1981.

2. I lived with my parents and my two sisters in a small concrete house. We didn’t have
much, but it was enough to not go hungry and have a roof over our heads, all because my
dad worked very hard for it. I looked up to him since I was just a little kid. He had a job
in the U.S. so he came and went every day to give us everything we needed. He always
listened to me and supported me, and my mother taught me how to be good and grateful
for what we had. I always had a good relationship with my sisters, and we spent a lot of
time together, until they got married and left the house.
3. I was in high school when I met the love of my life, Veronica Chavez. I knew I wanted to
spend the rest of my life with her and build a family with her so I started working when I
was in eleventh grade. I got a job at the post service in Juarez city and worked to offer
Veronica a good life. I did my best but soon I found out that it wouldn’t be enough with
the salary I had to support a family. I tried working more and getting other jobs, but
suddenly I found myself with a humbler life than I had with my parents. I felt desperate
when I knew my partner was pregnant because I wanted that child to have the best life I
could offer them. I traveled to the U.S. with a visa and found a job in construction. My
partner joined me right away, and we settled in Texas where I could work and give my
family a good life, just like I had always wanted.
4. My daughter, Litzy Johanna Salcido, was born in El Paso, Texas, on July 21 st, 2001.
She’s my oldest daughter and she’s always been the light of my life. I loved her since the
first time I saw her, and since then I promised myself to do everything I could, so she’d
be very happy. We always had a great relationship, we spent a lot of time together when
she was little, and she always trusted me a lot. When she came home from school she told
me about everything she did that day, and she listened to me when I gave her advice. She
was very kind and well-mannered and I was very proud to be her father.
5. Things started to change when Litzy got older, when she entered to high school. She had
new friends, all of them American, and they were a very bad influence on her. They were
very rebellious, they sneaked out of their houses and talked badly to their parents, and
Litzy saw it all and started to act just like them. I was worried because she started to get
very angry when I didn’t give her permission to stay over with the other kids, afraid that I
wouldn’t be able to go get her if she were in trouble because I could get detained for
driving around with so many migrations check-in points near the house. Each time that I
tried to talk to her, tell her to focus on school instead of going out all the time she got
mad, and she started to scream that I couldn’t understand her because I was Mexican. It
hurt me that she said things like that, but I knew that something was very wrong when we
found out she had smoked marihuana and drank so much she had almost passed away.
We were also contacted by her school because she was about to fail a subject. I tried to
talk to her about it but she ended up saying that I didn’t study so I had no right to tell her
anything about school. She became an adult who played with my feelings, who treated
me badly and talked to me like I was nothing. She insults me in public, she criticizes my
 legal status and she refuses to listen to anything I say. I have tried many times to get
close to her again, to talk to her because in the end she’s still my daughter and I love her
with all my heart, but it hurts that she uses all my love to take advantage of me. I feel
devastated that she doesn’t see me as her dad anymore, just someone she can take
advantage of because I’m less according to her, all because I wasn’t born in the U.S like
her.

FINANCIAL ABUSE

6. Litzy forces me to pay for all her expenses and her share of the bills, telling me that it´s
my obligation to do it as long as she wants, so I always have to work double shifts, no
matter how tired I am. My daughter isn’t working at the moment, but even when she did
she never gave me any money for the house expenses or decided to buy her own things
with her salary. I spend around 4000 dollars a month, and I can barely make it, while she
has no desire to work, or to pay for anything for herself because she knows she can take
everything she wants from me by manipulating me and making me feel bad. She has even
said that she didn’t have any obligation to give me money to pay for any bills. Litzy
doesn’t care about the payments I have to make, it’s not something that she ever thinks
about and instead she just demands more and more things from me. She has told me that
it’s me who has to give her the money for her food and gas and everything she needs, and
that isn’t even including the extra things she wants for her and for the house to have the
lifestyle she wants without having to pay for it. I don’t think a week goes by without her
saying she wants me to buy a new thing, whether it´s clothes or an iPhone. I have to think
about how badly it will affect me, about how many hours I will have to work to cover
everything because Litzy makes me feel like I can’t say no. I know that if I tell her that I
can’t give her what she wants, she will explode in anger, hurting me deeply, because I
don’t want her to be mad at me. She knows how badly I want my family to be okay, I
want to live up to the image I have of my father, so when she causes big and unnecessary
expenses I can’t even think to tell her she has to cover it. I know she won’t anyways, but
it’s as if she’s making fun of me for the effort I make to give my family a good life. I feel
so tired all the time from all the work I have to do, and I lay awake at night thinking
about the work I have to do the next day, so I never get any rest. Litzy doesn’t care about
that, and it hurts that she’s so indifferent about how exhausted and stressed I feel just
because she enjoys taking all the money she wants from me. I feel very worried that this
will never change, she’s an adult already and she acts like she will keep taking advantage
of me for as long as she can.
7. My daughter makes me pay for expensive things for her, including her car and everything
it needs, treating me aggressively to intimidate me if I refuse. Litzy makes me feel very
hurt and used because she plays with my feelings to get anything she wants. She has a
handful of ways in which she does this. For example, the other day she went to hug me,
and gave me kisses on my cheek as she told me to buy her a pair of tennis shoes that cost
hundreds of dollars. It was so hurtful to know that I can only get my daughter’s affection
when she wants something from me. I knew that if I said no, her attitude would change,
and it would only hurt worse when she started screaming. When I refused, she left,
yelling that I was the worst father that had ever existed. She didn´t talk to me for a whole
week. Litzy takes everything she wants from me by lying, and playing with my feelings,
 and the most expensive thing has been the car she owns right now. It’s a car that cost
thousands of dollars, and I had to work every day of every week and have no rest at all to
be able to make all the payments. It makes me feel sad that I worked very hard to get it
for her, but she doesn’t even take care of it all, and she makes me pay for all the car’s
repairs. The other day she made a trip to Ciudad Juarez, and when she came back I
noticed that one of the tires had a bump, it was clear it had to be changed. I asked her
about it, and at first she lied and said she didn’t know what had happened, she just
wanted it changed. I asked her if she had gotten into an accident or something, and that is
when she got an angry look on her face and kicked the tire before raising her voice at me
to tell me she had sped past a hole on the road. I couldn’t even bring up how much it
would cost to replace it, she just left me there, she went to her room and slammed the
door closed. I could hear clearly how she was smashing things around in anger, so I had
to stay away from her door. It hurt me to see how she used her anger to keep me from
talking to her. She knows the last thing I want is for her to be mad, especially at me, so
she uses it to make me pay for whatever she wants. I feel like all my money goes to her,
and she doesn’t appreciate it in the slightest, so she always keeps asking for more. All of
this makes me feel very worried for the day I won’t have anything to give her, I don’t
even want to think how angry she will be then and how terrible she will treat me.

LEGAL ABUSE

8. My daughter criticizes the fear I have of traveling without my papers to make me feel like
she’s superior to me and to humiliate me because I can´t travel anywhere. It hurts me
deeply that my daughter knows how hard it is for me to live as an immigrant without
papers, and she uses it as an opportunity to make me feel even worse. It’s very often that
she mentions my papers as she screams when I mention I can’t travel getting detained,
and she rubs in my face that she has rights that I can only dream to have. The other day,
she told me she wanted to go visit her cousins in Chicago. I told her that it was okay and I
asked her to be careful, because I couldn´t go with her, so I wouldn´t be able to help her
if she needed anything. I noticed how her face changed right away, her face filled with
anger, and she pressed her lips together. I felt very hurt by the way she was looking at me
and it was made worse when she told me in a loud and cruel tone, “I don’t have to stay
locked up in here like you. You don’t have your papers, while I can go wherever I want.
It sucks to be you” I didn’t know what to say as she looked straight at me. It made me feel
very bad that she told me these kinds of things. I stayed quiet and she left, still angry
about my words. I feel confused and hurt because all I’ve ever wanted was the best for
her and for her to be okay, but she takes my concern and uses it as an opportunity to
remind me how she sees me as nothing just because I’m not American. Litzy sees that I
feel very desperate because I wish she would at least support me, but all I get are her
humiliations and reminders that I’m nothing to her.
9. Litzy participates in illegal events and causes trouble in public, making me feel scared
that I could get detained if the police investigate her. It’s very scary to see her leave the
house because she leaves with her friends, who get into trouble all the time. My daughter
has told me herself how her friends get arrested for organizing and participating in street
races and get sent to jail. I try to tell her that just being there can get her into trouble, but
 she doesn’t care about that and much less about how she could drag me into it if the
police investigate her. It makes me feel bad that I tell her about how she could get
detained as well for being in these races, and she just rolls her eyes at me and says in a
disgusted voice, “You had to be Mexican.” It’s as if she doesn’t care at all about what
could happen to me, like it’s the same to her if she drags me into the trouble she causes
and I get deported over it. She never thinks twice before doing bad things, including
yelling at strangers when it’s so easy for them to call the police on her. On one occasion
we went to eat at a restaurant. She has very specific orders because she has allergies and
is also very particular about food. I don’t think she explained it right to the waiter, but
when her food came, she wasn’t satisfied with it. I saw her getting very angry about it,
and it made me feel worried. I tried to keep her calm and we asked the waiter if it could
be changed. I saw how the man noticed my daughter’s rage, and he offered to change her
food, but Litzy didn’t let him. Instead, she raised her voice to yell at the waiter in a very
angry tone, “No, it’s too late now, don’t bring me anything!” I felt very worried, I was
ashamed about how she treated the waiter, and she made me and my wife hurry to eat
because she wanted to get out of there, complaining loudly and angrily. I obeyed her,
thinking that taking too long would make her explode at the other waiters too. I was very
stressed because I didn’t know how she could react, and how the managers could react. If
Litzy caused a scene or the cops were called because of the aggressive way she was
acting, I could get in deep trouble, but she didn’t care about this. I’m constantly afraid of
the bad things my daughter does; she even gets tickets for driving recklessly and doesn’t
care if she gets detained. It’s all as if she doesn't care about anything that happens
because she sees herself as invincible, while I live terrified because the smallest
interaction with the cops can get me deported to Mexico, and instead of avoiding them,
she seems to ask for them to come to the house to get me.
10. Litzy looks down on me for not speaking in English perfectly like her, and makes me feel
that I’m nothing to her because I’m an immigrant. My daughter sees me and treats me
like I’m nothing, and no matter what I do, nothing is ever enough and she even uses the
fact that I don’t speak English perfectly to remind me of it. One day, we were in the
living room watching an episode of a TV series we liked. We often watched it in Spanish,
but that day she had set it up and she put it in English with no subtitles. I asked her if she
could switch the language as the characters spoke very fast, and there were words I didn’t
understand. She didn’t even turn to look at me, but she said “no” in an annoyed and cruel
voice right away. I felt bad because she went on to say, “I don’t like Spanish, English
sounds so much better than Spanish.” I was hurt as I tried to tell her that they were just
languages, there wasn’t one better than the other, but she didn’t let me speak. She shut
me up, and she looked at me with disgusted eyes before she said in a loud and cruel tone,
“I won’t change the language so you better stop bothering me or get out of here.” It
shocked me how indifferent she looked about how hurtful her words were. It was clear
that she didn’t care that she was making me feel terrible. It hurt that she said bad things
about something from my culture, as if Spanish speakers were less. I felt very humiliated
then, but it was something she did very often so I knew there was no point in trying to
talk to her about how I felt because she simply didn’t care. I left for my room so she
wouldn’t see how I was about to cry, but she just stayed quiet, seeming even happy that I
left. Because of things like this I’ve felt very pressured to learn English as perfectly as
she wants me to. I started to take English classes just so she would stop making hurtful
 comments about the way I spoke, but I had to drop out of them because I couldn´t pay for
them. All her demands took most of my time and money and I had to leave my classes to
keep on working and get all the money she demanded from me. It makes me feel very sad
that I can never count on her support with things that have to do with English, she never
tells me what a word means or helps me communicate with strangers. It’s hard to see how
strangers are more willing to help me and not my own daughter. I feel very hurt all the
time because even when I try my best, nothing is enough for her. It scares me that it will
always be like this because she sees me as less since I was born in another country and
that will never change.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE

11. My daughter Litzy reacts in a very aggressive way when she gets angry at me, she yells at
me and throws things in her room, making me feel intimidated by her. I can’t talk to my
own daughter or say anything to her without her raising her voice at me and telling me
things like, “I can do whatever I want and you can’t say anything about it.” As her dad,
all I’ve ever wanted was for her to be okay, to give her advice and enjoy time together,
but she now reacts awfully when I try to give her some advice. During the past few years
she has treated me like she feels nothing for me except for disgust, and she only keeps me
around because she can take advantage of me. I feel like I’m just talking to the air
because when I finish telling her how I feel about all of this, she just says in an annoyed
tone, “I don’t want to hear anything about it.” Then, she leaves for her room, and then
slams the door closed with all her force. I’ve had to change the doorknob on the door of
her room because she’s made it come loose from all the strength she uses to slam it and
how often she does it. It’s also very often that she starts throwing things around so I just
hear the things bouncing against the walls and door. She once even broke a window
because she threw a shoe against it, and later on, she told me that she had felt
tempted to grab one of the window glasses that had fallen and cut my arm with it.
When she told me that I felt really scared, and I didn´t know how to reply. I’m scared of
saying anything to her when she gets like that because she has actually thrown things in
my direction if I stay in the same room as her, so I try to give her space, but she doesn’t
calm down easily. Sometimes, days go by I can’t talk to her because she will just ignore
me and look at me like she’s imagining hurting me terribly. Even when I tell her how bad
I feel about the way she acts she just acts as if I wasn’t there at all. It’s gotten to the point
I feel it’s better to just stay quiet when she’s around because I don’t want her to yell at
me. It makes me feel like nothing, and the last thing I want is for her to be mad at me. I’m
starting to think she’s capable of raising her hand at me and hurting me, and it makes me
feel very sad that the relationship I used to have with my daughter is gone.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE

12. My daughter puts me down for not having papers and makes me feel like I deserve the
bad way she treats me since I can’t travel with her to other states. Litzy makes me feel
like I’m to blame for the bad way she treats me. When she gets mad because I can’t take
her on an expensive vacation trip, she says it’s all because I’m an immigrant without
 papers, as if it’s something I can change easily and quickly. It makes me feel like it’s
somehow a failure on my part, even when I’ve always done my best to keep my daughter
happy and support her in her adult life. The other day Litzy came to me and told me in a
very demanding voice that she wanted me to take her to Las Vegas or Miami. I felt my
chest get tight as I reminded her I couldn’t go anywhere, telling her that I hadn’t fixed my
papers yet, and she had to wait a bit longer, otherwise I could be deported and taken back
to Mexico. This made Litzy very mad, and she looked at me with disgust in her eyes as
she screamed at me, “It’s your fault we can’t ever go out! If you don’t have your papers,
that's your problem! Why can´t you just get them?” I put my head down as I told her I
knew that, she’s always made it clear that I’m on my own when it comes to fixing my
papers. It hurt me that she’d take the opportunity to rub the situation in my face and yell
in a very cruel way, “I do have my papers and you don’t! Why do you have to be
Mexican?” I didn't know what to do to keep her calm, she was so angry at me that it hurt
me. I tried to tell her that I just didn’t want to have any issues when we traveled, but she
screamed over my voice to say that she wouldn’t have any issues, making it clear I was
the problem. She turned around and left for her room, slamming the door closed with all
her strength to make a terrible sound. It’s hard that she always shows me how her friends
go on vacation all the time. It hurts because she makes it look like it’s my fault I don’t
have my papers and can’t travel safely, as if she’s right to explode in anger and scream at
me over it. It makes me feel very sad that she doesn’t show the smallest bit of empathy
for my situation and instead she uses it as another way to make me feel like I’m not good
enough to be her father so that is why she’s always yelling at me and treating me terribly.

VERBAL ABUSE

13. Litzy often screams at me and she has told me very offensive words in public, making me
feel very hurt and humiliated. I never thought that my daughter would end up talking to
me and yelling at me like I mean nothing to her, but now that she does I feel very hurt
and ashamed all the time. It’s hard for me to think that someone I love so much is capable
of screaming at me like she does, and the fact that she uses insults to put me down makes
me feel like crying. I can’t even have a conversation with her or talk to her about the way
she acts because I only get her loud and angry voice as she yells at me. The other day, a
neighbor came into the house in the middle of the night. I was very confused about his
visit until he told me that he had seen my daughter leave the house through his security
system. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but I thanked him and went looking for my
daughter, who I thought was in her room. Of course I can understand that she’s already
an adult and so she can do whatever she decides to do, I want her to be free and live her
own way. The problem is that I know how irresponsible she is and I can never feel okay
when I know she does these things without telling me anything. That’s the reason why I
worry so much, and she knows about it, but she still does this, like trying to impose
herself over me and keep me concerned. I felt very worried when I didn’t see her there,
she had left in the middle of the night without a word. I couldn’t sleep at all, so I heard
when she came back hours later. She didn’t come through the door, she did it through her
window, and when I went to talk to her, she pretended to be asleep. I called her name,
and I asked her if she was alright, trying to know why she did something like that. She
denied it at first until I told her that the neighbor had seen her. Then she started getting
angry, and she raised her voice to say that the man was lying. I felt very bad about the
situation, so I put my head down and told her that I just wanted her to talk to me and for
her to tell me the truth. I felt terrible that she just kept yelling and told me that I was
Mexican and didn’t understand, but the thing that hurt me the most was that she screamed
at the top of her lungs, “¡Me vale madre lo que digas! / I don’t give a flying fuck about
anything you say!” I was so shocked and hurt by it that I couldn’t say anything else. I felt
pressure behind my eyes, so I knew I had to leave the room before I cried in front of my
daughter, and she said something worse. I can’t ever get these actions, she could just talk
to me and tell me about it, instead of doing such a thing, going out at night like that and
then coming through the window as if she was doing something bad or like she was just
an immature teenager. I feel very alone and hurt that this is happening because she knows
how badly her words and her yelling hurt me. Besides, I’m very confused to see how
childish she can be just to see me frustrated, trying to get me frustrated at all times, as if
she was trying to punish me for something. She’s seen how bad I feel after situations like
this and she keeps on doing it as if she enjoys making me feel very hurt with her words.