Gaby Fernandez Sanchez

And we quickly found out that immigration laws are not designed to keep families together.

The lawyer explained to us that when this happens, the person cannot come back into the country for 10 years, a decade.

This is when my mom sat me and my brother down, and we had one of the most important conversations in our life.

What do we do?

You see, on one side, we had just moved here.

I mean, the ink was barely drying our visas.

I was getting used to a new country, a new language, new friends, new school, and we loved it here.

And on the other side, if we left the States, then we would lose our immigration status completely.

So talk about an impossible choice, or let's call it a Gabby's choice, right?

He can't come in and we can't leave.

We decided to stay and try to find ways to reunite.

In the meantime, my relationship with my dad was over the phone.

This was before the times of FaceTime and WhatsApp.

My parents' marriage had been through a lot with the move, and the strain of being in different countries was just too much for them, so they ended up getting a long-distance divorce.

And then my 18th birthday crept up.

Remember when I said that when we were minors, we were covered under my mom's visa?

But the lawyer explained that the second I turned 18, I would become illegal.

So here comes the second Gabby's choice.

Do I stay or do I go?

The day before my 18th birthday, I landed in Spain.