Thread: {Sob}A father's 'unbearable' absence

A father's 'unbearable' absence
Kenyan family struggles as dad faces deportation
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff | August 2, 2007

LOWELL -- The assembly line cranks into action every morning. Veronica Mwangi ushers her 2-year-old quadruplets into the bathtub, all at once, where they are soaped, rinsed, dried off, and dressed. Then they all converge in the dining room for a breakfast of porridge.

On weekends, her husband used to take over while she went to work. But Stephen Waweru has been gone for nearly two months now, and he might not come back.

Waweru, 35, a truck driver, was detained June 5 and is being held in Maine for deportation to Kenya. In 2003, an immigration judge denied his request for political asylum. He overstayed a final deportation order issued last year.

Waweru said he had been arrested and beaten in Kenya for his involvement in the opposition political party. The judge pointed out that opposition forces won the national elections in 2002, so it was safe for Waweru to return.

His case illustrates how the sometimes time-consuming process to resolve immigration cases can uproot lives. In the 13 years his case has wound through the system, Waweru married a legal resident and became the father of quadruplets and the stepfather of a 6-year-old boy.

Now, he is begging federal immigration officials to halt his deportation on humanitarian grounds. "They let Stephen's case go on for so many years only to say now, 'Go back home?' " asked Mwangi, 33, in her dining room, decorated with family photographs and alphabet letters on the walls. "How do you say that to a father who has five kids in this house to provide for?"

Shawn Saucier, a spokesman for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, said he could not speak about Waweru's case because of privacy rules.

But in general, he said, asylum requests hinge on the danger the person faces in their homeland. "If those conditions no longer exist," Saucier said, "how can you fear returning?"

Though the agency has tried to process cases more quickly, he said, appeals and other delays can stretch them out.

Ilana Greenstein, Waweru's lawyer, said her client fears for himself and worries that his American-born children cannot get specialized healthcare they need, including speech therapy and treatment for respiratory infections, in Kenya.

"All he wants is to take care of his kids and to take care of his wife," Greenstein said.

Waweru fled Kenya and arrived in the United States in 1992. He and his mother were active in the political party that opposed then-president Daniel arap Moi, who ruled for more than two decades until 2002. Waweru told immigration authorities he was arrested several times and beaten for his activism.

In one instance, police jailed him for two weeks in July 1991 and refused to give him food for several days, Waweru said in immigration court documents. Six months later, he said, he was arrested and left with a dislocated leg and a broken thumb.

He applied for US asylum in 1993 as he tried to build a new life, juggling community college classes with two or three jobs. In 2003, after numerous hearings, a judge denied him asylum and ordered him to return to Kenya. Waweru appealed, arguing that he still could face harm by the police in Kenya.

By then, Waweru had even more reason to stay in the United States. A year earlier, he had met Mwangi, a slim, elegant nurse from his bustling hometown of Thika. They worked at a group home for the developmentally disabled in Stoneham. He liked that she shared her meals with him. She admired that he took residents for walks and chatted with them in their rooms.

In 2003, they married. The next year, with his appeals pending, they learned that Mwangi was pregnant with quadruplets. On Dec. 2, 2004, the children arrived early: Deanna, Vianna, Tianna, and Stephen Jr. Each weighed less than 3 pounds. Tianna was so tiny that Waweru's wedding ring slipped easily around her wrist.

Since the births and two months in the hospital, their modest two-story house in Lowell has been a whirlwind of feedings, diaper-changes, hospital visits, and naps.

Mwangi said she is trying to manage alone. She recently dozed off while driving the family van to work and crashed. She cut her hours at the nursing home where she works. The new beds they ordered to replace the children's playpens are still boxed up.

Mwangi, a legal resident who has applied for citizenship for herself, is pleading with the government to let her husband stay.

But her lawyer said Mwangi probably cannot sponsor her husband because he overstayed his deportation order. Mwangi tells the children their father is coming home. But she is uncertain.

"Even with my husband here we struggle," she said wearily, "so without him it's unbearable."

Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com.



© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl ... e_absence/

Since she is not yet a citizen and needs her husband so badly, I suggest she and the children accompany him home.

He knew all those years that his future was uncertain....but he goes ahead and has kids anyway....go home with him....that way you can be all together..

Pass the crying towel.

Ahem, cough, cough.

political asylum from a friendly country? BS

Examples of enemy countries seeking to destroy the USA:
nK
Communist China
Iran
Mexico
Tata/India
Azt Land (aka National Communist La Raza)

And, no, H-1Bs, you don't deserve political asylum! Go back to Bang Town! Take your employer with you!