From the life’s-not-fair file comes the story of Guadalupe Ceja Hernandez, the woman canned last week by Waukegan Unit School District 60 officials. Her tale could be a modern-day script for a Twilight Zone episode.
Or perhaps a page from Catch-22, the satiric World War II novel author Joseph Heller penned in 1961. Either way, Hernandez is caught in a bureaucratic nightmare not of her own making.
She’s a victim of not only the current policies of the administration of President Donald Trump but of her employer, the city school board. Some board members were sheepish during an open session last week, noting they had no choice but to fire the valued Lincoln Center communications secretary.
They bleated it was either that or face uncertain legal wrath from the federal government for employing a person whose DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — papers are in red-tape limbo. Any lawsuits would cost the district money, they opined. In a 5-1 vote they decided to axe Hernandez.
Unlike some in the private sector who have found themselves afloat in the same officialdom boat. In these cases, the workers were put on unpaid, extended leaves, their employers standing behind them against bureaucratic excess.
Professional Support Staff Council of Local 504 of the Lake County Federation of Teachers requested that Hernandez be put on unpaid leave pending a change in her immigration status. School board members seemingly didn’t consider that option as community members and union reps urged the school board to not terminate her.
Instead, the path they took leaves a once-valued employee without a job, income and health insurance. The 33-year-old can’t even apply for Illinois state unemployment insurance after losing the job she’s held for some six years. DACA recipients are allowed to remain in the U.S. as long as they renew their immigration status, needed for a work permit, every two years.
So much for being a welcoming city and county. Or having compassion for the Waukegan High graduate who was dragged to the U.S. from Mexico by her undocumented parents when she was a toddler,.
At the June 9 school board session, District 60 Superintendent Theresa Plascencia said Hernandez could apply for work once her latest DACA forms are approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to Steve Sadin’s front-page story in the June 11 News-Sun. That offer won’t pay the bills anytime soon.
She isn’t the only district employee who may face similar circumstances, according to community leaders. That’s as the Trump administration slow-walks any paperwork dealing with immigrants and immigration.
DACA requests are supposed to be adjudicated in three months, but the National Immigration Law Center reports that under the Trump administration, some applications have taken six months or longer.
Hernandez, it has been pointed out, followed federal regulations and filed her renewal application for DACA — the status of which she has had since 2012 — in mid-December, 2025. It was due to expire on April 24, 2026.
That filing gap is wider than the span needed to send a NASA astronaut into space. Yet, she has not received OK from government factotums.
Federal processing delays, believed by immigration-rights supporters to be a deliberate tactic on the part of the Trump administration, have affected all avenues and lives of those who crave to become U.S. citizens.
The immigration agency says hampering renewal of paperwork is caused by a number of factors: Stricter security and background checks, enhanced vetting, lack of employees and in-person biometrics (such as fingerprints). Also not helping was the federal shutdowns last year and this year.
Thousands of people in the U.S. legally with official Green Cards have been waiting months to take U.S. citizenship tests and have their in-person interviews after applying to become Americans. The testing pipeline looks to be congested with no sign of anyone attempting to unclog the logjam or clear the DACA holdups.
In the U.S., there are an estimated half-million DACA-eligible individuals. In Illinois, 63,248, according to data from the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.
Anita Hanna, long-time District 60 school board member, was the sole voice supporting maintaining Hernandez on the payroll. “It’s not fair,” Hanna said, according to Sadin’s account. “She did everything right and, in my opinion, she should be able to keep her position.”
Those voting to give Hernandez the sack had the opportunity to stand up for what’s right and what’s fair, despite federal oversight. Given the chance to pass a civics test against rigid bureaucratic rules, they failed.
In the June 11 column, it was stated that AbbVie employs more than 11,000 workers internationally. That is the number of employees in Illinois. Across the globe, the North Chicago firm employs approximately 57,000 people, including more than 6,000 Americans at 11 U.S. manufacturing sites.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor. sellenews@gmail.com. X @sellenews
