Thread: FL-3 family members facing deportation still in hiding

Posted on Thursday, 11.19.09
3 family members facing deportation still in hiding

A family facing deportation from Miami now worries that the past from which they fled in Venezuela might be their future if immigration authorities remove them.

By ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@ElNuevoHerald.com

When Jesús Reyes Sr. and his wife Glenda moved into an apartment overlooking the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas in 1988, they congratulated themselves for choosing a place with a view of the 19th century structure in the Venezuelan capital.

But the move would eventually set the family on a path to flee the country 12 years later and seek asylum in the United States. Like many other Venezuelans, the Reyes' failed bid for asylum has left the entire family -- Jesús, Glenda and their three sons, Guillermo, Jesús, and Marcos -- on the verge of being thrown out of the United States, where they had hoped to rebuild their dreams.

For now, Guillermo, 25, and Jesús, 21, are in immigration custody and facing deportation as friends and classmates at Miami Dade College mobilize to preempt their removal. Meanwhile, their parents and brother, Marcos, 23, are in hiding.

Miami Dade College students are planning a rally for the Reyes brothers on Thursday.

The world of the Reyes family in Miami collapsed November 12 at 7:30 a.m. when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrived at their home telling Jesús Reyes Sr. that their time in the United States was over.

`` `You cannot remain here a minute more,' '' Reyes Sr. recalled an officer telling him as Guillermo and Jesús rose from their beds and began getting dressed.

As immigration officers detained Guillermo and Jesús, their father managed to leave to contact his attorney and warn his wife and Marcos. They were not at the house because they had not arrived from their all-night jobs, said Reyes Sr.

By the time Reyes Sr. contacted Coral Gables immigration attorney Eduardo Soto and regrouped with Glenda and Marcos, Guillermo and Jesús were locked up at a detention center in Pompano Beach.

Though ICE officials would not discuss the case, the family indicated that immigration officers had a final order of deportation dating to 2005 after their asylum petition was denied.

Guillermo recently received a computer-animation degree at Miami Dade College and Jesús is taking criminal-justice courses there and was the 2007-2008 president of the Kendall Campus Student Government Association.

Their case is similar to that of Juan and Alex Gómez, brothers from Colombia who almost were deported in 2007 but were spared after their Internet-savvy friends launched a national campaign on their behalf.

An economist at a Venezuelan bank, Reyes Sr. had a relatively stable life in Caracas.

In the mid-1980s, he married his childhood classmate Glenda a few months after the two ran into each other by chance on the sidewalk of a downtown Caracas expressway bridge.

Their first child, Guillermo, was born Sept. 2, 1984. The second, Marcos, on Oct. 13, 1986. The third, Jesús Jr., on June 23, 1988.

That same year, Reyes Sr. bought the apartment near Miraflores.

A year later, in 1989, he began to regret the decision after the family was pinned down by gunfire for days as rioters fought government troops during an uprising triggered by gas-price hikes.

But it wasn't until eight years later, with Hugo Chávez in power, that Reyes and his wife decided to leave Venezuela. They began receiving threatening phone calls in the middle of the night after Reyes Sr. joined an anti-Chávez movement and was distributing pamphlets.



http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-d ... 40979.html

Sob....NOT!!

Send the criminal back home . Let him get a lawyer there .

NO DREAM ACT!!!!