Thread: Eddie's Steak Shed owner held for deportation Wife and kids wait, hope for reprieve

Eddie's Steak Shed owner held for deportation

Wife and kids wait, hope for reprieve from ICE agents

Mar 8, 2017 Updated 4 hrs ago



GRANGER — In January, cook and kitchen whiz Roberto Beristain signed on as owner of the popular Eddie’s Steak Shed, a fixture on Indiana 23 for 40 years.

Now the employer of about 20 workers sits in a county jail in Kenosha, Wis., with the possibility that he could be deported to Mexico.

Beristain, 43, has a work permit, driver’s license and a legal Social Security number — thanks to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which has been aware of his deportation order dating back to 2000, said his immigration attorney, Jason Flora, of Indianapolis.

“When I try to explain to the kids, I’m at a loss for words,” said Beristain’s niece, Kathy Anagnos.

Beristain is separated from his wife, Helen, a U.S. citizen who’d immigrated from Greece more than 30 years ago, along with three kids at home in Mishawaka’s Winding Brook subdivision — two daughters, ages 14 and 15, and an 8-year-old son.

When asked what she’d do if Roberto is deported, Helen paused, then said, “We just don’t want that to be an option.”



His story reflects an immigration system that has become complex over the decades, forced to focus on the most pressing cases and make provisions for others that it didn’t have the resources to deport. Beristain is among the nearly 1 million immigrants, as reported by the New York Times, who linger in the United States with a deportation order.

That system is taking an abrupt turn under President Donald Trump. One of his executive orders has greatly broadened the priorities for whom ICE agents should deport — no longer just those with a criminal history or those considered a danger, but opening it up for anyone who is here illegally.

Beristain originally came to the U.S. in 1998 to visit his aunt in California, then decided to stay. Helen, his wife of 17 years, said she doesn’t know exactly how or when he lost legal status.

A pivotal moment in Beristain’s life history came in 2000 when he and Helen took a trip to Niagara Falls in New York. They inadvertently drove across the border to Canada and border agents discovered that he was, at that time, in the U.S. illegally, said Flora.

A federal immigration judge in New York ordered him to voluntarily deport himself by December 2000, Flora said. Beristain chose to stay. He felt that he had to because Helen was pregnant with their daughter — and at high risk since Helen had high blood pressure.

Once he stayed past the deadline, an ICE spokeswoman confirmed, the judge’s order reverted to a “final order of removal.”

Beristain’s attorney at the time, Helen recalled, worked it out with immigration officials that he could stay in the country as long he avoided crime and reported once a year to an ICE office. Agents don’t grant such leniency for all deportation orders, Flora said, but they do so by weighing the positive versus negative factors.

He said ICE agents also allowed Beristain to gain a work permit, driver’s license and a legal Social Security number and card, marked with the provision that citizens don’t have: “Valid only with Department of Homeland Security authorization.”

ICE has granted this sort of documentation as a way to ensure that, as long as those with deportation orders remain here, they can support themselves and not become a drain on the system, said South Bend attorney Mike Durham, who specializes in work-related immigration matters.

It isn’t the majority of cases, he said, but it isn’t rare either.

It has enabled Beristain to work, including as owner and cook at the former Four Seasons Restaurant near the South Bend airport. He worked in the kitchen at Eddie’s Steak Shed for eight years until January, when he bought and took over the restaurant from his wife’s sister.

Picked up by ICE

Early this year, Beristain reported as he’s done for the past 16 years to an ICE office in Florida, where one of his attorneys had been based. But ICE agents there told him to instead go to an ICE office in Indianapolis. He did so Feb. 6, not suspecting anything.

That’s when Beristain was picked up and detained in Brazil, Ind. For the weeks following the family would take their daughters out of school for a day to make weekly visits and talk to him through a glass window at the jail.

Last week, however, he was moved to a larger county jail in Kenosha, Wis. Helen said she was initially only told that he wasn’t in Brazil anymore, adding, “I didn’t know if he was in Mexico. … They don’t tell you anything else.”

Flora has filed a “stay of removal” to prevent deportation, arguing that Beristain is a safe, productive member of the community. He and the family have yet to hear a decision on that. It’s his only defense, Flora said, since the court case was decided and done back in 2000.

In 2007, Helen said, the couple also applied to have Roberto’s legal status adjusted since he’s married to a U.S. citizen. That case is still pending.

If sent back, Beristain would find family in Mexico City, including his parents and siblings, according to his 28-year-old stepson, Phil Kolliopoulos.

Durham explained that going after people like Beristain could become problematic for ICE officers.

If ICE tries to deport everyone, he argued: “We’re going to miss criminal aliens because we’re not going to have the resources to go after everybody. We have a limited number of ICE agents and a limited number of detention facilities.”

Local advocates say they haven’t seen much, if any, enforcement in Michiana that reflects Trump’s directive to widen deportations. But Flora said he’s seen signs of it in Indianapolis.

Meanwhile, Helen said she is struggling to keep the restaurant running without Roberto, since he’d done everything — bus tables, wash dishes, cook. He keeps offering advice during the three calls a day that he makes almost daily from jail.

Helen’s sister, Effie Limberopoulos, who’d just sold Eddie’s, has come back to help in the interim. And her son, Nick, who’d run the kitchen with Roberto, admits that it’s now lacking in speed and quality.

“We relied heavily on each other,” Nick said. “This happening was literally like cutting off two legs."

Compared with the felons in the same jail as Roberto, including others with deportation orders, Nick said, "He deserves to be an American citizen."

http://www.southbendtribune.com/news...561e05785.html

He said ICE agents also allowed Beristain to gain a work permit, driver’s license and a legal Social Security number and card, marked with the provision that citizens don’t have: “Valid only with Department of Homeland Security authorization.”

ICE has granted this sort of documentation as a way to ensure that, as long as those with deportation orders remain here, they can support themselves and not become a drain on the system, said South Bend attorney Mike Durham, who specializes in work-related immigration matters.

It isn’t the majority of cases, he said, but it isn’t rare either.

In my opinion, this shows ICE to be complicit in the aiding and abetting of illegal immigrants. I'm sick and tired of the hypocrisy of our whole immigration system!

Blah blah blah, you all have the same old story and excuses.

You are talking to death ears.

American's have been waiting for a "reprieve" for decades.

Get them all out of here!

a legal Social Security number and card, marked with the provision that citizens don’t have: “Valid only with Department of Homeland Security authorization.”

WHAT??? obama made things up as he went along - and our politicians let him get away with this and other nincompoop ANTI-AMERICAN edicts. SOME POTUS - THE LIKES WE HOPE NEVER TO SEE AGAIN.

Originally Posted by MW

In my opinion, this shows ICE to be complicit in the aiding and abetting of illegal immigrants. I'm sick and tired of the hypocrisy of our whole immigration system!

They're also complicit when they deliver illegal children to relatives across our country.

Aren't we getting tired of these sob stories.

Every sob story just reminds me of how much these people have taken advantage of this country and it's people and for how long.

These people have been cheating and lying for all these years and we are supposed to feel sorry when they are finally caught!!!

How have things gotten so backward in this country?