http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/N ... ndex.shtml

Nov. 2, 2006

FREE AT LAST

A young mother is released from jail, but may yet be deported over a misdemeanor offense

by P.J. Tobia


Together Again Claudia Nuñez and her daughter. photo: P.J. Tobia After weeks of imprisonment, Claudia Nuñez is finally home.

The time she spent in two federal lockups with rapists and thieves “was horrible,” the 26-year old mother says.

But nothing was worse than being separated from her two young daughters. “That was,” she says, “like torture.”

Three weeks ago, the Scene reported that Nuñez was arrested and thrown in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cell awaiting deportation (“Small Time, Big Crime,” Oct. 12). She had overstayed her visa, and in this unusual case, was flagged for federal enforcement proceedings after she was caught driving without a license.

Even ICE spokesman Temple Black was shocked at the overzealous response in Nuñez’s case. “But this is like, nothing,” he told the Scene after hearing about of Nuñez’s transgression. “What we are focused on is aggravated felons.”


An immigration judge in Memphis may have agreed. Nuñez has been released on bond until her immigration status is settled. Though her struggle to stay in the country with her husband, who is here legally, and her children—both of whom are U.S. citizens—is far from over, she feels lucky to be home again.

“There are people who have been waiting in that jail for five months” without a hearing, she says of the Memphis holding facility where she was.

As she spoke, she sat in the living room of her South Nashville home, just off of Edmonson Pike. On the couch next to her, her 3-year-old daughter Dianara giggled as Barney filled the TV screen. Nuñez held her daughter close, brushing dark curls off of the girl’s forehead.

It was a much different picture last month, when, dressed in a red prison jumpsuit, Nuñez wept uncontrollably at the very thought of holding her daughter again. A day after speaking with the Scene last month, Nuñez was transported from the Williamson County Jail—where she had been held since her arrest two weeks prior—to the federal jail in Memphis. There, she was to go before an immigration judge who would hear her case and decide whether she was to be deported.

Nuñez ran afoul of the law when she overstayed a legal visa. This went unnoticed by authorities until September, when she received a summons for driving without a license. When she arrived at a Davidson County court to resolve the matter before a judge, local cops, acting on ICE authority, handcuffed her and placed her under arrest.

What followed was an agonizing wait behind bars until going before immigration court Judge Charles Pizar. She didn’t think that she would ever see her daughters again on U.S. soil. But Nuñez had luck and a good attorney on her side.

A binder that attorney Sean Lewis prepared on behalf of his client was full of personal letters of recommendation written by her boss at a restaurant in Brentwood, by co-workers and by others in the community.

“If you look at the facts of the case, she was trying to comply with the law when she was arrested,” says Lewis, noting that she was voluntarily arriving to court—on time—for the driving without a license charge when she was arrested. “The [immigration] judge realized that she wasn’t a flight risk.”

“He saw that I’m a good person,” Nuñez says of the judge who allowed her to post bond and return to her family.

Though out of prison, Nuñez is not out of the woods. Immigration authorities are still pressing for her deportation, and it may be only a matter of time before she is sent back to her native El Salvador.

She says that life there is cheap. “They will kill you for a dollar,” she says of her homeland.

Her attorney and other staunch supporters may be all that separate her and her daughters from such a fate. Lewis thinks that if the case generates enough publicity, it may convince the ICE authorities to grant her “deferred action status.” This would in effect set her case aside to be reexamined at a later date. Lewis says that such a decision is “entirely discretionary,” and in the hands of one woman, ICE district director Stella Jarina, in New Orleans.

Given the tremendous response to the young mother’s plight, Lewis and Nuñez have reason for hope. At least two local television news stations and a host of bloggers have covered Claudia Nuñez’s story since the Scene broke the news last month. And the BBC has also interviewed Nuñez for a story.

ARC of Tennessee, which offers assistance to developmentally disabled Tennesseans, came forward to help with Nuñez’s older daughter, who is speech-impaired. This newspaper also received numerous requests from concerned readers who wanted to help the Nuñez family in any way possible.

The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) is building a petition of support for Nuñez and has invited her to speak at its convention this Saturday.

“This is a tragic case,” says David Lubell, state director of TIRRC. “We’re trying to demonstrate public support for her and her family.”

Though hopeful, Nuñez is realistic, and worried. “It’s scary,” she says. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”