Thread: Guatemalans find asylum denied years after arriving here

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4542258.html

Feb. 10, 2007, 10:28PM
Guatemalans find asylum denied years after arriving here
U.S. says the exiles no longer qualify, because that civil war ended in 1996


By TAL ABBADY
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel


• The law: In 1997, the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act allowed Guatemalans who applied for asylum in the 1980s to seek legal residency but not those who fled during the last years of the war.
• The challenge: Advocates argue that, because the U.S. government had a role in the civil war, all asylum seekers from that era should be allowed to stay here.
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. - Juana Tomas resolved to forget the ghosts of San Miguel Acatan.

She fled her native Guatemalan village, tucked in the rural highlands where civil war raged, and headed north in 1991.

In the United States, Tomas sought political asylum. She was 17.

Adolescence turned into adulthood. She gave birth to two sons and made a home for them in Lake Worth, Fla., joining a large, Qanjobal-speaking community of Maya farm workers and day laborers in Palm Beach County.

Raising her children and working in a nursery, she waited for a response from the government.

Fifteen years later, in 2006, Tomas, now 33, learned that federal authorities denied her asylum claim.

An immigration judge recently ordered her deported to Guatemala, a country still reeling from the effects of a war that ended a decade ago.

Advocates say she is one of roughly 250,000 Guatemalans whose asylum claims from the 1990s have been rejected by U.S. authorities. All could be deported.

U.S. officials say Guatemalans no longer qualify for political asylum, because their country's civil war ended in 1996.

Because of a massive backlog, the government only last year began notifying applicants that they must leave the country, immigration lawyers say.

Every year, Tomas renewed her work permit, raised her sons, and had little idea that her newfangled American life was built on borrowed time.

"The memories are less now. But I can't go back. We have a life here," said Tomas in a dimly lighted apartment she shares with U.S.-born sons, Alex, 14, and Jesus, 11, and another family. Now Tomas finds herself challenging the government whose protection she sought.

She and other exiles in Florida, home to 28,650 Guatemalans, plan to join a California lawsuit against the Justice Department, said her attorney, Aileen Josephs.

Attorneys for the nonprofit group Casa de Cultura de Guatemala in Los Angeles are preparing a lawsuit demanding a halt to pending deportations of Guatemalans who entered the United States before the end of the civil war.

Your house gets flooded......you go stay with a neighbor.....your house is not flooded anymore, but you insist on staying with the neighbor because your neighbor has a nicer house. Your neighbor has no say-so?????!!!!

This time I must disagree, this lady was given asylum, be it at the end of the war, she had a work permit she renewed every year, sounds like she went out of her way to do what was right, she raised two sons obeyed our laws, and worked hard. I believe she should be given citizenship before some 10 to 20 million lawbreakers, that don't give a damn about our laws or our country.

Instead of renewing her work permit over and over which I bet many of the 250,000 did not, shouldn't they have told her years ago, she needed to go home. If our government hadn't condoned it I could understand. But they did!!

If anyone should be given citizenship it should be the ones who have not been hiding in the so called shadows, they are ones like thiefs in the night!!

SOSADFORUS wrote:

This time I must disagree, this lady was given asylum

From what I'm reading, whe was never officially given asylum. Due to the war, which no longer exist, she was given temporary permission to reside in the United States. Since the civil war that brought her here ended a while back, it's now time for her to return to her homeland. Furthermore, let's not forget the fact that she came here illegally. Fortunately for us the United States still retains the right to decline an asylum request.

I see what you're saying, but the fact remains - this lady came here illegally and then filed a request for asylum. The request was never granted, but she was able to remain temporarily (approved annually). Perhaps she should be thankful for that because we didn't have to accept her on a temporary basis. Just my opinion.

I agree, it seems kinda cruel, but the law says

the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act allowed Guatemalans who applied for asylum in the 1980s to seek legal residency but not those who fled during the last years of the war.

She came in 1991. Did she not understand that she was not eligible?? My contention is, when you start twisting and making exceptions, then you might as well throw out the whole system. If it doesn't mean what it says, what good is it? I'm not saying it's right, but that's what it says. We come to the point that whatever the rules are people think, "don't worry they will change it and let us stay." I'm all for helping these people on a case by case basis, but not for just allowing the whole kit-kaboddle to stay. I sincerely feel for this lady though.

Guatemalans are still applying for asylum even though the war is over. Once the US opens the door everybody thinks that they should be allowed to go through and the government keeps letting them. We need to stop granting asylum, the world is not the responsibility of America.

A situation like this really tears me to pieces.

Guatemala's civil war was as brutal as anything our CIA has EVER had a hand in, and after 15 years here I would want to give an exception. She fled for her life as a teenager and deserves asylum, barring some glaring criminal history or something. These are the real 'victims' that we all SHOULD have pity on.

On the other hand, the Mexicans have gotten SO GREEDY that they've stretched my compassion beyond tolerance, and make me want to throw up my hands and scream. What we DON'T need are ECONOMIC refugees from a corrupt country that cares not for it's own, but jealously protects that $30 billion a year their unwitting soldiers remit.

It's an uncomfortable place to be.

Originally Posted by MW

SOSADFORUS wrote:

This time I must disagree, this lady was given asylum

From what I'm reading, whe was never officially given asylum. Due to the war, which no longer exist, she was given temporary permission to reside in the United States. Since the civil war that brought her here ended a while back, it's now time for her to return to her homeland. Furthermore, let's not forget the fact that she came here illegally. Fortunately for us the United States still retains the right to decline an asylum request.

I see what you're saying, but the fact remains - this lady came here illegally and then filed a request for asylum. The request was never granted, but she was able to remain temporarily (approved annually). Perhaps she should be thankful for that because we didn't have to accept her on a temporary basis. Just my opinion.

Wasn't the request granted when they gave her a work permit. were they not telling her it is ok to be here or am I missing something?

[

[quote:3hkkziu9]quote="PinestrawGuys"]A situation like this really tears me to pieces.

Guatemala's civil war was as brutal as anything our CIA has EVER had a hand in, and after 15 years here I would want to give an exception. She fled for her life as a teenager and deserves asylum, barring some glaring criminal history or something. These are the real 'victims' that we all SHOULD have pity on.

On the other hand, the Mexicans have gotten SO GREEDY that they've stretched my compassion beyond tolerance, and make me want to throw up my hands and scream. What we DON'T need are ECONOMIC refugees from a corrupt country that cares not for it's own, but jealously protects that $30 billion a year their unwitting soldiers remit.

It's an uncomfortable place to be.

[/quote:3hkkziu9][/

Heres lies my problem too and I have not been very compassinate believe me, I have lost all patients with illegals, but this is a very sad story and the lady did renew her work permit where most don't, they just forget it and feel they have the right to stay and not answer to anyone, I don't know the whole story but it doesn't say she ever broke any of our laws. like I said how many of the 250,000 allowed asylum do you think renewed a work permit!! Come on I am trying to have a little compassion here for someone who was out in the open in the mist of all law breaking and choas we have in this country thanks to Mexico.

I posted this article earlier in the week. Send them back is all I can say. They are doing jobs that many Americans would gladly do.