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Immigrant Moms Ask Quinn To Pardon Their Husbands

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A pair of immigrant mothers trying to keep their families together visited the Thompson Center on Monday, hoping for an audience with Gov. Pat Quinn – or, better yet, a pardon for their husbands.

Olivia Segura said her husband, Alberto, faces deportation after he was caught with $25 worth of cocaine.

"We hired a private lawyer. The lawyer told us to plead guilty, because that was the easy way to go. When I was in the process of finishing his residency is when I found out that that was the wrong thing," she said.

Now, to avoid having her husband deported, she is asking Quinn to pardon him.

Segura said, if her husband is deported, she'll have to follow him, and exhume the body of her daughter, an Illinois Army National Guard member who was killed driving a military ambulance in Kuwait, so she can bring their daughter's body with them.

Joining Segura was Julie Contreras, whose husband had a similar background, and turned his life around, but also faces deportation and a family split unless he receives a pardon.

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