Judge deports driver
Posted: Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:25 pm
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HELENA - A woman from Argentina who had lived in the United States illegally for six years faces immediate deportation after mistakenly heading the wrong direction when returning to California from Montana and crossing into Canada.

In an order issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell wrote that by leaving the country, however briefly or unintentionally, Estafania Menendez, 26, subjected herself to immigration laws that allow for her immediate deportation.

"In her testimony, Menendez admitted that she overstayed her six-month visa by about six years and that she has been working illegally in the United States ever since she arrived," Lovell wrote.

Menendez entered the United States through Georgia on a six-month travel visa in November 2002.

She moved to California, where she has lived for the past seven years, and has done work that pays cash so her illegal immigrant status wouldn't be revealed.

She was married once for three months.

Menendez has been incarcerated at the Cascade County Detention Center since her arrest in August.

About a year ago, she met a man from Missoula and they fell in love, she said during a hearing on the matter on Sept. 1.

She said she drove to Montana to visit with the young man and his family and plan their wedding. But when she left on Aug. 12, she drove north on Interstate 15, not realizing her mistake until she arrived at the Canadian border.

"I'm bad with directions," she said.

She couldn't turn around on the interstate, so she explained her mistake to the Canadian border agent, who told her to drive around the flagpole to turn around and re-enter the United States. However, when she got there without a passport, birth certificate or any identification other than her international driver's license and her visa, the U.S. agent said she could not return without facing deportation.

Menendez said she was afraid of being alone in Canada and afraid of returning to Argentina, so she decided to try to stay in the United States. With that decision, the federal government began an expedited deportation effort.

During the Sept. 1 hearing, her attorney, Shahid Haque-Hausrath, argued that driving around a flagpole in Canada to return to the U.S. doesn't legally mean she left the country. He noted a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case in which a man whose visa automatically renewed whenever he left the states tried a similar tactic. In that case, the court ruled that driving around the flagpole didn't constitute leaving the country, Haque-Hausrath argued.

He also noted that Canada did not have any record of Menendez being admitted into that country.

He filed a petition to stop the expedited deportation, and asked Lovell to force the government to go through the regular deportation effort, which can take more than a year.

"The court finds that Menendez did physically enter Canada and then present herself for admission to the United States," Lovell wrote in allowing the expedited deportation.

Menendez has been incarcerated at the Cascade County Detention Center since her arrest in August.

Posted in Montana on Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:25 pm | Tags: Deportation, Estafania Menendez, Illegal Immigration



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