Thread: Nanny’s time in U.S. running out

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegio ... eid=128347

Nanny’s time in U.S. running out
By Maggie Mulvihill
Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Time is running out for a 32-year-old Hingham nanny who overstayed her student visa and is set to be deported to her native Belgium Thursday.

Victorian Vannerom has spent the last month in the Suffolk House of Correction at South Bay awaiting deportation after her arrest in January by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Efforts by her employers - two Hingham biotech executives whose twin sons Vannerom cared for - to legally adopt her have failed, said Alicia Secor, 43.

Secor and husband Jim McGorry, 49, hired Vannerom in 2004 and said she has become an integral part of their family.

“It’s a shame. I can’t tell you how much we are going to miss her,” Secor said. “I still feel in my heart of hearts there should be a legitimate way for her to stay in the United States.”

The Vannerom case has raised questions about how aggressively ICE should target immigrants in the United States who hold down jobs, have no criminal record and pay taxes, as Vannerom did.

“Violators of our immigration laws should be penalized, but resources should be focused on the most dangerous individuals who present the highest risks,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

“If DHS has limited resources, shouldn’t those resources be used to find people who are here to hurt us and not people who are serving our food, caring for our elderly and taking care of our children?” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition.

Vannerom’s attorney, Jeffrey B. Rubin, said while he had no detainee clients last year who did not have criminal records, he now has 30.

Asked for comment on the increased number of non-criminal detainees, Paula Grenier, an ICE spokeswoman, said:“We have over 700 detainees in our New England field office who are in varying stages of removal.”

A breakdown of how many of the 700-plus detainees are criminals and suspected terrorists and how many have no criminal record was not immediately available, Grenier said.

She obviously did something to get ICE's attention. They only go after high profile, headline grabbing cases or if they think they make some money off of it, by fining the employer.

Agreed. I've been told there is an unwritten rule for people who mind their own business, pay taxes and stay out of trouble withe the law. They leave them alone to find a path to legalize. This was especially true before 9/11. My girlfriends parents got summoned to be deported, they showed up, and when they heard they had been undocumented in the U.S. for 14 years and they still haven't legalized, they were shocked. They pretty much left them alone because they have an alien relative petition in the pipeline so there is no point in deporting them, and their lawyer was a former head of the INS in NY so I am sure that helped.

Even if an illegal is deported, they can obtain a permit to re-enter regardless of the 10 year ban. And in certain situations, if they have a house, have paid taxes and so forth, they will be permitted to re-enter once the visa number is current. Thousands of undocumented people become legal each year through adjustment of status under 245i. My dad actually became legal under 245i so I am not going to trash it by saying it is wrong. Yeah I know, I sense another backlash about "but they were illegal to begin with...blah blah blah".