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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — At 52, Martha Lugo's back has begun to hurt from her job cleaning houses. Still, she continues to work hard to provide for her two daughters, one a senior in high school, the other a senior in college. Lugo also volunteers as an interpreter for Catholic Charities and tutor for GED classes.
In many respects, the Nashville resident is an ideal citizen — but she's not a U.S. citizen. That means Lugo also lives with a constant fear that the tiniest infraction, like going slightly over the speed limit, could upend her entire world.
Like an estimated 11 million others, she is in the country illegally.
"I've been here nearly 25 years and haven't been able to find a way to get legal status or even permission to work," Lugo said. (She speaks English well, but the interview was conducted in Spanish.)
That could change this spring, when President Obama's new plan for administrative relief takes effect.
The measure could help Lugo stop living in fear of deportation, get permission to work legally and maybe even return to Mexico for the first time in a quarter century to visit her 90-year-old father.
As the mother of two U.S. citizen children, Lugo would likely qualify for the new program. She perfectly fits Obama's description of some of the people he hopes it will help — "a mom who's working hard to provide for her kids."
Lugo says she plans to take advantage of the president's new policy, but she says she doesn't want to get her hopes up too high yet.
"In Mexico we say, 'paper talks,'" she said. "Until you have it in writing, it's not a sure thing."
Lugo came to the U.S. from Michoacan, Mexico, in 1989 on a tourist visa. She said she had not been planning to move to America, but she was offered a job at a Winchell's Donut House while she was here. She took it.
In Mexico, she had been working for the federal government but said she barely earned enough to get by while living with her parents.
"I saw that this was a place to find a better future," she said. "I decided to stay here, and, over time, I started a family."
With her life rooted firmly in the U.S., Lugo has not wanted to risk travelling back to Mexico to visit the friends and family she left behind. She didn't even go when her mother died earlier this year.
The possibility of finally being able to visit her father after so many years is exciting, as is the possibility of pursuing a better job in the U.S.
Although she is educated, having studied accounting and computers in Mexico, Lugo's work here has been in fast food restaurants and later housekeeping.
She easily got her GED a few years ago, and she helps others by working as a volunteer tutor for GED classes.
"When we come from our countries, it is to work to help our families, so education is secondary. We have to help our families that we left behind, because they are counting on us," she said. But she encourages other immigrants to learn English and pursue an education so that they can take advantage of opportunities that crop up.
If her opportunity to work legally comes this spring, Lugo would like to study to become an accountant or a tax preparer.
"It's never too late," she said.
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