Thread: Chinese teenager who faced deportation gets green card

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Smuggled Chinese boy pleads to stay in U.S.
Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:53 PM ET



By Jon Hurdle

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Chinese teenager smuggled into the United States 2 1/2 years ago is pleading to be allowed to stay in the country, saying he would be tortured or killed if he was returned to China.

In an interview with Reuters from a detention center near Houston, 17-year-old Young Zheng said the smugglers who arranged for him to enter the United States in 2003 would kill or torture him if he is returned to China because he has not paid the $60,000 they say he owes them.

The story of a "model student" pursuing the American dream but facing possible death in China has attracted national media attention from The New York Times to NBC News, highlighting the plight of immigrants fighting deportation.

What sets the case apart from myriad illegal immigrant stories is that most are caught and then sent straight home, according to Young's attorney, John Sullivan. Young was caught traveling on a fake passport but was allowed to stay with an uncle in Akron, Ohio, after requesting political asylum.

Young's mistake, Sullivan said, was that he chose to get an education rather than go "underground" and work illegally to pay off the smugglers, who are known as "snakeheads" because of the way they slip from place to place along clandestine routes.

"Here is a kid who could be a huge contributor to our society if only the government would let him in," Sullivan told Reuters.

Young's fear is so great that during a deportation attempt in April, he repeatedly hit his head against a wall in an effort to stop authorities from putting him on a plane to Hong Kong.

"I was trying to kill myself because I was so scared," Young told Reuters. He said he didn't know whether he would do something similar if U.S. authorities try again to deport him.

The U.S. Justice Department's Board of Immigration Appeals has rejected a request to reopen his case. But the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia recently granted a "stay of removal," allowing an appeal to go forward. A decision is expected in the next two months.

SECOND CHILD

Young told Reuters that his father and uncle had arranged for him to be smuggled to the United States because he was a "second-born child" under a Chinese law limiting couples to one child -- a situation that exposed his family to higher taxes.

At age 14 he agreed with the plan to slip into the United States.

"It meant I didn't have to worry about my education so I agreed to it," Young said.

On his arrival at New Jersey's Newark airport in January 2003, he was detained for traveling on false papers and has spent all but about nine months since then in detention.

After about a year in a Pennsylvania detention center, Young was allowed to live with his uncle in Akron, where he attended school, learned English and became an "A" student.

Professor Steven Lewis, a China expert at Houston's Rice University and a witness for Young, said in a court affidavit that he "faces a credible threat of serious physical harm" from local authorities and smugglers if sent back to China.

Young says he has been threatened by "snakeheads" and his father, who has also received threats, has disowned him and said the debt is Young's responsibility.

"He was very angry with me for reporting to immigration," Young said. "He wanted me to move to a city like New York and work but I came here ... to get a better education."

Young said he fears that if he is returned to China, the "snakeheads" will find him and hurt or kill him.

"I am always having a bad dream, that the smugglers were looking for me and would make trouble for me," he said. "I am so afraid."

A State Department report last month called China a source of "men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation.

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Posted on Tue, Sep. 26, 2006

Chinese teenager who faced deportation gets green card


Associated Press

HOUSTON - A teenager who begged not to be deported to China because he said human smugglers would kill him over a debt has been granted permanent residency in the United States, his lawyer said.

Young Zheng, 18, had been fighting for asylum since his arrival in 2003. He said he's not wanted by his father because he is the family's second-born and that he faces reprisals from human traffickers over an unpaid $65,000 smuggling fee.

Zheng had been living with an uncle in Akron, Ohio, and attended high school there until his final deportation order came through last year and he was detained.

Officials with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services informed lawyer John Sullivan that Zheng's permanent residency was approved Sept. 19 and that his green card will be issued soon.

"It's a dream come true," Zheng said Monday.

Zheng is now a high school sophomore in the Houston area with plans to apply for citizenship, which he will be eligible to do in five years. He said would like to attend either Rice University or the University of Texas.

"We're just tickled pink," said Sullivan, a partner at the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski, which handled the case for free.

The government granted Zheng "special immigrant juvenile status" in April, which is intended for children who were abandoned, abused or neglected in their home country and allows them to apply for permanent residency if it's in their best interest not to return.

U.S. officials discovered Zheng's fake passport when he arrived at the airport in Newark, N.J., at age 14. He was released to his uncle in Akron on the condition that he check in periodically with the Department of Homeland Security, and he lived there until his final deportation order came through in April 2005.

But while being escorted by immigration agents to a flight bound for China, Zheng broke away and banged his head into a wall until he passed out because, he said, he feared facing the smugglers.

He was treated at a hospital and then sent to a juvenile detention facility in Houston. Zheng's lawyers then began making appeals to convince the government that Zheng's story was true and he should be allowed to stay.

Zheng has said that his father and stepmother have told him not to contact them because they fear for their lives. His father blames Zheng for the threats, because Zheng didn't work illegally to pay the smugglers, Zheng said.

Zheng came to the United States after his father arranged his trip through the smugglers. His mother has died and he said his father chose to send him away because as the second child born to the family he faced "extreme discrimination."

China limits most families to one child. Couples who have more than one have been subject to heavy fines, job losses and forced sterilization.