A mother in suburban Schiller Park and her 5-year-old son are preparing for a one-way trip to Poland tonight.

After 18 years in the Chicago area, she’s getting deported.

Chicago Public Radio’s Chip Mitchell has more.

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens denied a motion this afternoon that would have stayed Janina Wasilewski’s deportation.

So Wasilewski and her son, Brian, are packing their bags for tonight’s flight to Warsaw.

Her husband is trying to spend time with his son before they leave.

Tony Wasilewski is staying behind to run the family’s cleaning company and take his U.S. citizenship test in August.

TONY WASILEWSKI: “I don’t know how I’m going to open his bedroom and find an empty bed.”

The family has an appeal pending in federal court.

But a 1996 law requires deportees to stay out of the U.S. for 10 years.

I’m Chip Mitchell, Chicago Public Radio.