Thread: Sen. wife on deportation list

Feds move to deport Norcross state senator's wife

By MARY LOU PICKEL, BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/30/06
Federal immigration officials appeared at the home of State Sen. Curt Thompson (D-Norcross) this week to inform him that his new wife has a deportation order against her.

Thompson told agents his wife, Sascha Herrera of Colombia, was not at home at that time. She has not been taken into custody.


(ENLARGE)
State Sen. Curt Thompson (D-Norcross) says his wife is the victim of badly done paperwork.

Thompson, who has been an outspoken advocate for immigrant rights, said he checked Herrera's immigration status before marrying her in April 2006.

"When I got married, I was informed and I had good reason to believe, she was validly in this country," Thompson said. He said Herrera was in the country on a student visa. After the couple married, Thompson said "we applied for an adjustment of status," or a green card.

Thompson said the first he heard of the outstanding deportation order was when two agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement knocked on his door Tuesday morning.

He and his wife "hope to have this situation quickly resolved with the immigration authorities," Thompson said in a written statement Wednesday evening.

In the statement, Thompson said his wife is the victim of a "notario." In some Latin American countries a "notario" is an esteemed lawyer; in the U.S. it translates into notary public. Some U.S. "notarios" misrepresent themselves as lawyers and often file incomplete and improper immigration applications for unsuspecting clients.

'A common occurrence'

Herrera had an F-1 student visa when the couple met in December 2005, according to Thompson's statement. The problem arose because the notario did not put her address on one of her immigration applications and, therefore, she missed an important hearing about her status, said Charles Kuck, an immigration lawyer representing Thompson.

"Tragically, this is a common occurrence," Kuck said. "There's one agency to which she's applying for a green card, changing her address as required, and telling them where she lives. Meanwhile, there's another agency of DHS [Department of Homeland Security] trying to deport her."

Kuck said in the last year he's seen about a dozen cases of "people getting deported because some notario put down the wrong address and they missed their interviews."

A spokesman for ICE declined to comment on the case.

Sascha Herrera graduated from college in Colombia in 2003 and became a staff writer for the bilingual Revista Elite Magazine in Atlanta in 2005, according to her biography on the magazine's Web site.

Herrera is a master's student in professional writing at Kennesaw State University, according to her biography.

Herrera also handles Thompson's public relations with the Hispanic media and translations, her biography says.

Herrera was a professional ballerina with the Ballet de Colombia de Sonia Osorio, according to short article on Thompson's legislative Web site announcing their marriage in Tennessee earlier this year.

Thompson advocated for immigrant rights during debates on illegal immigration that dominated both the state Legislature and Congress this year. He is a frequent speaker at events focused on immigration, including an October rally near the Capitol that drew a crowd of about 2,000 to march for legalization for immigrants.

During an August congressional hearing in Dalton focusing on the cost of health care for illegal immigrants, Thompson argued that the cost of such care is outweighed by the economic benefit immigrants bring to Georgia.

Thompson represents state Senate district 5, a diverse district including parts of DeKalb and Gwinnett counties, where U.S. Census Bureau numbers show that about one in four of the county's residents is foreign-born.

Thompson speaks Spanish, French and German, according to a biography on his Web site. He said at the Dalton hearing that his district is so diverse he has to campaign in Spanish, Korean, Hindi, Vietnamese and Mandarin to keep his seat.

That's what they all say Thompson.

Dixie

Since they are married they shouldn't be split up.... deport them both!! Problem solved! NEXT!

Hmmm... So I hope that he will have the decency to abstain from any vote on immigration.

Ya know this is getting pretty sickening. What kind of a background check does the government do on people when they become elected to office?

Also, every last one of them should be drug tested from the POTUS down to the last one of them.

These are our leaders?!?! God help us. As you can see I am very skeptical about believing this story. With 20-50 million illegal aliens in our country......why should I believe this??

Originally Posted by CrocketsGhost

Hmmm... So I hope that he will have the decency to abstain from any vote on immigration.

In the statement, Thompson said his wife is the victim of a "notario." In some Latin American countries a "notario" is an esteemed lawyer; in the U.S. it translates into notary public. Some U.S. "notarios" misrepresent themselves as lawyers and often file incomplete and improper immigration applications for unsuspecting clients.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/us/03 ... tml?ref=us

December 3, 2006
Georgia Legislator’s Wife Battles Deportation Order
By BRENDA GOODMAN
ATLANTA, Dec. 1 — The wife of a Georgia legislator known for his strong support of immigrants’ rights is in hiding after federal agents came to their home on Tuesday with an order to deport her to her native Colombia, her lawyer said.

In a written statement issued on Wednesday, State Senator Curt Thompson, 37, a Democrat, said his wife, Sascha Herrera, 28, missed an immigration-related court hearing in February 2005. Mr. Thompson said notices about an asylum application that had been mistakenly filed on her behalf had been sent to the wrong address, causing her to miss the hearing.

Because Ms. Herrera did not appear in court, a federal judge issued a deportation order in February 2005, Charles H. Kuck, Ms. Herrera’s immigration lawyer, said on Friday.

Mr. Kuck said Mr. Thompson told him that his wife was not at the couple’s home when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived on Tuesday to take her into custody. Mr. Kuck would say only that Ms. Herrera was in a safe place.

“We’re making an arrangement, we hope, for her to come in Monday morning,” Mr. Kuck said, adding that he would try to persuade an immigration judge to reopen Ms. Herrera’s case.

It is usually difficult to get an immigration case reopened, several experts said.

Advocates of immigrants’ rights say Ms. Herrera’s situation is another indication of how byzantine is the system for applying for legal residency in this country.

“It’s a very, very onerous system,” said State Senator Sam Zamarripa, a Democrat who was the first Hispanic elected to the Georgia Senate. “If the wife of a state senator can’t handle it, how can we expect people who are working in our labor force to handle the bureaucracy?”

“This is going to take a U.S. congressman or a senator to step in,” Mr. Zamarripa said. “To say, let’s wait a minute. Let’s think about this. This is a good person who deserves to be in this country.”

Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, said he could not comment on the specifics of Ms. Herrera’s case. Generally, Mr. Raimondi said, “People who are here legally are very, very careful about their immigration status.” Of the couple’s claims of ignorance about the notices, he said, “It sounds like a lot of song and dance.”

In his statement, Mr. Thompson also said his wife was the victim of an unscrupulous “notario.” In some Spanish-speaking countries, a “notario publico” is a highly regarded lawyer with special power to negotiate with the government. In the United States, however, a “notario” is often a notary public with no special expertise in immigration law. Some notaries, however, advertise themselves within Latino communities and take advantage of the similarity between the two titles to charge high fees to file immigration paperwork with the government.

Mr. Kuck said Ms. Herrera originally paid $1,300 to the notary, whom he identified as Tomas Vilela, to help her file paperwork to extend her visitor’s visa so she could take classes at Kennesaw State University, just north of Atlanta.

Mr. Vilela recommended that she apply for asylum, Mr. Kuck said, and had her sign the last page of an application. But after she received an F-1 student visa, for which university officials had helped her apply, Ms. Herrera instructed Mr. Vilela not to file the application, Mr. Kuck said.

Mr. Kuck said that Mr. Vilela filed the forms anyway, and that because the paperwork listed the address of his business, all subsequent letters from immigration officials were sent there, not to Ms. Herrera’s home. Mr. Thompson’s statement said the notary did not forward the letters to Ms. Herrera.

She did not know about the filing and never received notices about the hearing, Mr. Kuck said, adding that the deportation order “hit the couple completely out of the blue.”

Mr. Vilela did not return several messages left at his office.

Though Ms. Herrera was in the country legally on the student visa, once she missed the date for the asylum hearing and the deportation order was issued, “it trumped all other legal status,” Mr. Kuck said.

Mr. Thompson represents parts of DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties, in a district where about one in four residents is foreign born.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted him as saying that he asked immigration officials about Ms. Herrera’s status before their marriage in April 2006 — more than a year after the deportation order was issued — and was told that she was in the country legally. Because her husband is a United States citizen, after their marriage, Ms. Herrera also applied for an adjustment of her status to become a permanent resident and obtain a green card. But the approval process is lengthy, Mr. Kuck said.

If she is deported, Ms. Herrera could be barred from re-entering the United States for 10 years, Mr. Kuck said, “so we have to work with extreme speed to try to fix this.”

They must have had a whirlwind courtship since they were married four months after meeting.

Can the good Senator be charged with aiding and abetting an illegal as well as harboring a fugitive?