Immigration officers escorted a Novato couple onto a plane bound for Guatemala early Thursday morning, ending Elida Perez and Salvador "Sam" Mejia's struggle for the right to remain in the country they have called home for 17 years and tearing apart their family.

Under a deportation order, the couple departed from San Francisco International Airport with Dulce, their 4-year-old American-born daughter. But, fighting their natural instincts as parents who value family above all else, they left behind their 18-year-old son, Gilbert, and their 13-year-old daughter, Helen.

When Gilbert was just a year old, Perez and Mejia brought him to Marin County illegally from their war-torn Guatemala. Now a Novato High School graduate and Santa Rosa Junior College student who leads youth groups in his church and dreams of becoming an architect, Gilbert will continue to live in the family's Novato home without documents--in legal limbo pending a July deportation hearing.

Helen--an American citizen by virtue of having been born in the U.S.--faced what the family's lawyer called "Sophie's choice." Her parents' deportation forced her to decide between the lesser of two evils. She could have gone with her mother, father and sister to a country she does not know and fears. Instead, she will remain with Gilbert in her own homeland and continue studying as an honors student at Novato High, orphaned by her country's immigration laws.

If the family can afford it--and that remains a question because Perez, 40, and Mejia, 39, left the U.S. after exhausting their savings on legal bills--Helen can visit her parents in Guatemala. Because they were deported, however, Perez and Mejia are barred from entering the United States for 10 years. And if Gilbert goes to Guatemala to visit his parents, he has no papers to re-enter the U.S.

When Perez and Mejia boarded the plane Thursday, they did so wondering when they would ever see their beloved son again. In 1992, they felt frightened when they left Guatemala during a civil war and crossed the border into America with their baby son and hopes of building a better life. They returned to Guatemala on Thursday brokenhearted.

"I feel so bad to leave my kids here," a teary-eyed Perez said last weekend as her children dressed for Halloween. Standing amid suitcases and boxes in the living room of the modest Alameda Del Prado ranch house she and her husband bought in 2002, Perez wiped her eyes and added, "It breaks my heart and breaks their hearts, too."

During a vigil with about two dozen supporters last week for the family outside Sen. Dianne Feinstein's San Francisco office, Helen spoke into a bullhorn about the torment she felt about her parents' impending deportation.

"It would be very sad for me if my parents get deported. I really need their support," the model-thin Novato High freshman said. Then she broke down crying and fell into Gilbert's arms.

Marc Van Der Hout, a San Francisco attorney, tried to convince Feinstein to sponsor a private bill allowing Perez and Mejia to stay in Novato with Helen. He said Helen has suffered post-traumatic stress disorder since immigration officers pulled her out of bed at gunpoint during a raid on her home in March 2007, and as a result, needs medical care she can only get in the U.S.

A spokesman for the senator said that though she has sponsored bills for other undocumented immigrants, "This case, while unfortunate, did not meet the exceptional circumstances required for introduction of a private bill."

"The family has now made what I think is a true Sophie's choice," Van Der Hout said, referring to William Styron's 1979 novel about a Polish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. "They had to decide if their daughter gives up her future or whether she gets left here and separated from her parents. As a parent of a sophomore in high school, I know how wrenching that decision would be.

"This is a really a very tragic decision, and it's one that could have been stopped with any show of humanity by the DHS [Department of Homeland Security. The Obama administration from high up really needs to take a look at what DHS is doing. Is this what President Obama wants to say to the American public and the Latino population? His people are tearing families apart and deporting them when they have the power to say, 'Let's rethink this.'"

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers raided the Mejia-Perez home in Novato in a case of mistaken identity. When it turned out the man they sought was not there, they demanded identity papers for everyone in the house and took Sam Mejia off to jail.

Since then, Perez, who cleaned houses and worked as a caretaker for children and the elderly, and Mejia, who worked in construction, have had to wear electronic-monitoring ankle bracelets, check in with immigration officials in San Francisco three times a week and be visited by ICE officers once a week. They have not been allowed to leave their home from 10pm until 7am, and when Perez asked permission last week for a day off from having to make the two-hour roundtrip drive to San Francisco so the family could spend one last day, Friday, together at their favorite place, California's Great America, ICE said they could report to San Francisco on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, instead of Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

"I understand I'm illegal here, and the law is the law, and they have to do their job. But they don't have to treat us like criminals," Perez said, looking at the uncomfortable and embarrassing electronic monitor she had to keep tethered to her ankle for two-and-a-half years, even while sleeping.

Wearing a ladybug costume as the sun set on Halloween, Dulce danced around the boxes and the luggage in the living room, too young to understand the laws that will separate her from her sister and brother. While Helen painted her face to be a half devil and a half angel, she repeatedly turned to her mother for help. "Do you have eyeliner?" she asked. "Red, red lipstick?" Perez could not help but wonder who will help Helen when she is gone.

"We came here hoping one day they're going to give amnesty for immigrants like us who work hard, who pay taxes," Perez said. "We just bring a dream and hope this country opens their doors.

"Like my son says, it's too bad they don't know about all the immigrants who have the same problem as us. They work hard here. They contribute. We work for less money. We live in the shadows. We are intimidated. We don't have any rights here.

"I'm telling you my story because there are thousands of families in the same place."

Does she feel angry?

"My question is who I'm going to be angry with. With immigration? They don't care about how I feel. We're not the kind of people to feel bad things about other people. That's why we go to church. He teaches us to love the enemies."

And they do. Last month, after Gilbert's parents testified at his deportation hearing that they fear a gang will kill their son if he returns to Guatemala, they saw the ICE lawyer leave the courtroom dragging a heavy load of files. Just a few minutes earlier, she had interrogated them. But when Mejia saw her struggling with the files, he immediately rushed to open the door for her.

"I'm not angry because I saw how many people love my family even if immigration doesn't," Perez said. "Maybe they can do something someday, not for my family but for another family."

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