A proud father, Gustavo Cabrera, top, displays a trophy won by daughter Cindy, 17, at the family’s apartment in Providence. The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

PROVIDENCE — Gustavo Cabrera rode across the U.S. border in a car trunk, sandwiched between four other men and breathing through a fist-sized hole. Hours later, the men raced from the car and hurled themselves onto a pile of people hidden in a truck that rumbled on to Houston.

That was in 1984. Cabrera has never seen Guatemala again.

In the two decades since, Cabrera built a life in Rhode Island based on shrouded identity and menial, dirty jobs. He packed fish and butchered chickens. He polished jewelry, sorted recyclables, shook vermin out of industrial laundry and scrubbed toilets.

He and his wife, who is a legal permanent resident, raised four children, whose honors certificates and sports trophies crowd their apartment shelves. Cabrera and his wife are proud that they put their children on the straight and narrow. He tells them, “Education is the key.”

But on July 15, Cabrera was 1of 31 janitors swept up in an immigration raid of state courthouses and charged with civil violations of being in the country illegally. And now, the electronic monitor clamped to his ankle reminds Cabrera that he may well be deported to Guatemala, a country he left for political, economic and personal reasons. He and his wife, who declined to be interviewed, waited until the morning after the raid to tell his two youngest daughters, 13 and 17.

“I told them there’s a problem and that fifty-fifty, I had to leave or stay,” says Cabrera, 48, a burly, voluble man whose black hair is streaked with silver. “My middle daughter was angry that we didn’t tell them first thing. She didn’t talk. She said what she had to say” for several days, “but you could tell she was mad,” he says through an interpreter.

Familiar with the inconsistencies of the U.S. immigration system, Cabrera says, “With Immigration, it’s all luck. I know for me it could be five years, or for you it could be five days.”

Still, he may very well have to go back to a country he left 24 years ago, to an uncertain future, without his family.

Melissa, his 13-year-old daughter, says, “ When my dad first told me they put the ankle bracelet on him, he just told me not to cry.” But she cried anyway.

She adds, “I know that most likely, he’s going to get sent back.”

AT 8 P.M. on a recent weeknight, Cabrera has returned home to meet his curfew. If he fails to do so, immigration authorities will track his whereabouts through the ankle monitor and could take him into custody.

A straw crucifix and other religious icons hang on the walls. The television is tuned to the Olympics. His daughter Carmen, 21, works at her computer, and the pet canary, “Bombero,” sings from his cage in the kitchen.

Cabrera’s first conversation turns to his children and their accomplishments at Times2 Academy and Classical High School. Melissa is in a gifted program at the Nathanael Greene Middle School. His son, Gustavo, 19, graduated from Classical and is now working.

Just a few of their litany of achievements: scholastic honors. Music awards. Softball, basketball, soccer. School newspaper and yearbook, Science Olympiad. Carmen is working at a bank and studying for a bachelor’s degree in accounting.

Cabrera appreciates what he has been able to accomplish in the United States, on behalf of his family. He consoles himself by saying that they “have already been raised properly,” but worries how they will survive without him. Meanwhile, he tries to remain strong.

“What is it worth for me to put my head down crying? I can’t be that way.…” He tells his children, “ ‘Life doesn’t end with this situation.’ They have to be strong. They have to confront life. Cry or don’t cry — my destiny has been made.”

He nods toward the family chatter emanating from the kitchen. “If I was depressed, do you think they would be talking like that? It would be like a cemetery. Who are the ones most injured by this? It’s them.”

CABRERA LEFT BEHIND a country embroiled in political turmoil.

His father was tortured for his political leanings.

“I want to show you how my father walked … for as long as I can remember,” Cabrera says, pushing up from the living room couch.

He demonstrates, hobbling with his ankles turned inward and his knees knocking together. “They sat him on a chair. They put his feet there,” Cabrera says, illustrating by stretching his legs onto another chair, “and they would jump on his knees.”

“The only thing I can tell you, is that he was a friend of Che Guevara when he [Guevara] came to Guatemala,” and of Jacobo Arbenz, “who was the head of government in 1954 before the CIA led a coup” and toppled him.His father “never wanted to discuss it with us.”

Cabrera was one of four children. In high school he played soccer, eventually reaching the semi-pros. He had a crowd of friends, and drank too much cerveza — developing a taste for alcohol he would later grapple with, successfully.

He hoped to become a doctor, but midway through his first year at a university, his father decided he could afford to send only one son through medical school. “They decided my brother was brighter than me,” Cabrera says with a laugh. “So my brother stayed in school.”

Meanwhile, fear remained a pervasive undercurrent in an unstable political climate. People were turning on each other.

“As a young person, you could be confused as a guerrilla. Some people could report each other at any time. When I was there, the government was run by the army. At that time, they put ads on TV to report people, to see if they were in guerrilla groups. They could just grab you off the street. They had special tribunals that could judge you innocent or guilty,” with no due process.

Cabrera decided to leave in 1984. A romantic involvement had ended and he was done with the university. Arrest was always a risk.

He hired a “coyote” to lead him across the border. “I brought a book bag with a sweater and pants. That was it.”

He has a lasting image of his mother leaning down from the porch to say goodbye.

“She was crying. Everybody was crying. I get a knot in my throat” at the memory. “Now,” he says of his parents, “they’re already dead.”

HE BUILT his new life on scut work.

After arriving in Providence, where he had friends, he stood outside a fish-processing plant near Rhode Island Hospital every day for two weeks, “just waiting for a chance for a job.” For three months, he packed fish in boxes and sent them off to be filleted.

Next came poultry processing, followed by jewelry plating in Johnston, where he met his wife. And then, welder’s assistant.

For 10 years he worked at the state’s Central Landfill recycling plant in Johnston.

They found radios, recorders and electronics. Once, they found a dead deer in the pile.

“The only thing you’ve got to be careful of is the hypodermic needles. The law was, if you ever saw one, you press the emergency button (and they come and take them out). We had to do that a lot.”

He spent the past 10 years as a sorter at an industrial laundry.

Horrors lurked in the linens.

“The restaurants throw the clothes and linens in a wooden box and don’t put the cover on. The food goes in there, the rats go in. They don’t pick up the boxes for five days sometimes.”

They’d shake out the rats and roaches. Then, “there were fish scales and maggots. It really stunk in summer. In the beginning when you saw the maggots — Ayyy! After awhile you just blow them off,” he says, puffing on his arm — “phh-phhf phhf.”

Even if you wear gloves, “after awhile everything starts to itch.”

Back then, when there was less attention paid to illegal immigration, he never looked over his shoulder and never bothered to pursue the complicated process of becoming a legal resident. “9/11 was what really affected us. ICE wasn’t on our tail until after that time.”

LAST YEAR, a friend offered Cabrera a job as a janitor with Falcon Maintenance and provided an application form. Cabrera signed it, without ever meeting anyone from Falcon Maintenance.

Within a few days, Cabrera went to work, mopping floors and scrubbing toilets in the holding cells of the J. Joseph Garrahy Judicial Complex.

When TriState Enterprises Inc., of North Providence, took over the Falcon contract last December, Cabrera kept his job. He worked the same part-time evening hours, and from 5 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., he worked at the recycling plant.

That all ended at 5 p.m. on July 15, when he and fellow workers arrived at the courthouse.

“There were people in the hallway” in plainclothes, he says, “and that’s when they grabbed me. They said, ‘You’re not going to have any problems.’ But down deep, you know it’s Immigration, and you ask God that it isn’t.”

Because if it is, he says, “You know that your life is going to change at that moment.”

Agents fingerprinted and photographed him and the 30 other detainees at the ICE processing center on Dyer Street — across from the Garrahy Courthouse — attached his ankle bracelet, and released him. Cabrera blames the raids and the governor’s executive order on illegal immigration, for exacerbating tensions.

He says, “Thanks to Governor Carcieri” for his problems. “I was working in the cells, there in that building… for $7.40 an hour, he’s [Carcieri] not going to clean the toilets in those cells. That’s what gets me angry.”

In the current climate, he says, some friends are returning home to Guatemala and Mexico. Others are constantly fearful.

“They go to the Laundromat, rush in, put their clothes in the washer, and rush out. They time it. Then they come back in, throw their clothes in the dryer.

“I agree, Immigration [ICE] should take criminals. I’ll help them find those people. But if they’re working … why bother those [working] people?” He knows this is a country of laws, but, he says, the immigration laws should be fixed.

For now, he’s pinning his hopes on the presidential election: “All the Latinos know, [whether] it’s Obama or McCain, there’ll be new rules.”

He attends weekly support and informational meetings with other detainees, led by community activists in Providence. He is hoping for pro bono representation. He is due in immigration court in Boston on Sept. 23.

Cabrera’s family will receive a total of $900 from money contributed by the Guatemalan government and local fundraisers. His wife’s small earnings will not cover rent, food and other expenses. Cabrera has asked his son and daughter, who are working, to put their money towards their education.

ON SATURDAY, Aug. 23, the sun bore down on the softball field on Niantic Avenue, where an awards picnic was in progress. Kids raced from water chutes to pony rides while parents chatted on the grass.

“We have a ‘bouncy’ [ride] and the ponies are on their way,” a coach announced over the loudspeaker. “We have a raffle — there are some pretty good prizes.” Hot dogs and burgers roasted on grills, sending gray smoke into the air.

Cabrera’s daughters, Melissa and Cindy, won new trophies for “outstanding good sportsmanship and teamwork” and “Softball All-Star” with the Elmwood Little League. The trophies joined the crowded display on the living room shelves.

“Obviously, I was very, very proud,” Cabrera says. “My family, my kids, for the moment, thank God, they’re on the right path.”

But if he is forced to leave the United States, he won’t be taking any family photos with him. He says that will make him too sad.

He will take the clothes on his back, like when he arrived 24 years ago.

The arrest will remain “a nightmare past.” He hopes his family will come and visit, whenever they can.

kziner@projo.com