Thread: Crackdown on immigrants splits family

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/469063.html

Published: Aug 09, 2006 12:30 AM
Modified: Aug 09, 2006 05:26 AM

Crackdown on immigrants splits family

Toby Coleman, Staff Writer
The past found Noellie Nouanounou as she held her 1-year-old daughter in an immigration interview room in Charlotte.

She handed over her diapered child to her husband, Gervais, and was escorted away to face a seven-year-old deportation order.

"They said, 'Even though you have children, you're going in,'" said Nouanounou (new-AH-new-new), a native of the Republic of Congo in West Africa. She has three American-born children, ages 5, 4 and 1.

Across the nation, parents like Noellie Nouanounou of Fuquay-Varina are missing story times, baths and other family rituals because they have been caught in the government's stepped-up efforts to expel illegal immigrants. Those left behind must decide whether to continue their lives in the United States or uproot their children, who are U.S. citizens.

Nobody keeps track of how many illegal immigrants who are parents are deported each year, but researchers suspect the number is growing because deportations overall are rising, said Randy Capps of the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.

Millions are at risk. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated in 2005 that 3.2 million American-citizen children have at least one illegal immigrant parent.

The situation has inspired some in Congress to rethink the constitutional guarantee of citizenship to everyone born in the United States, regardless of parentage. Researchers wonder what will happen to children who lose parents to deportation.

"I don't think anybody knows what the long-term implications are," Capps said. "But they're not likely to be good."

Noellie Nouanounou has missed the first steps of her 1-year-old daughter, Gervelie, since she has been in jail awaiting her fate.

It may be among many lost moments. "I will miss the chance to see them when they grow up or see them when they graduate or see them do most of that stuff," she said in a phone interview from the Etowah County jail in Gadsden, Ala. "I am worried for them."

Nouanounou, 30, has nobody to blame but herself. Years ago, she hobbled her petition for asylum by altering medical records. In March 1999, an immigration judge ordered her deported to Republic of Congo, a small country of about 3.7 million snuggled alongside its larger cousin, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Immigration authorities say it is time for Nouanounou to honor the order to leave the country -- family or no.

"She has a final order of removal issued and sustained by an immigration judge," said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "She's had her day in court."

Immigration judges can cancel deportation orders, but they rarely do. Last year, judges canceled or suspended deportations of about 4,000 illegal immigrants. In comparison, they told more than 220,000 to leave.

Assault by militiamen

Nouanounou is in trouble, said her husband, Gervais, a legal, permanent resident also from the Republic of Congo.

"I keep thinking about why is this happening," he said. "Why this kind of experience? Why we have three kids. Why this had to happen."

Noellie Nouanounou came to America in 1995 to escort her grandmother to her uncle's Cary home. With her, she carried the memories of being assaulted by militiamen in her hometown.

She stayed, hoping the U.S. government would shelter her from her country's political unrest. In her application for asylum, she said the assault showed the danger she would face if she returned to Brazzaville, the Congolese capital.

It didn't work. Immigration officials wrote that they could not give her asylum because the assault "appears to have been a random act of violence, not one directed at [her] because of membership in any particular group," according to documents provided by Nouanounou's family.

She appealed the ruling. While she waited for an immigration judge to decide, she said, she tried to bolster her case by altering medical records to make it look as if she had been complaining for years about aftereffects of the assault.

It's not clear how extensively Nouanounou altered the records. The government's file on her asylum case is secret, and her lawyer, Cynthia Aziz of Charlotte, said she could not discuss the proceedings because of attorney-client confidentiality rules.

Once the judge learned what she had done, Nouanounou said, he rejected her asylum request.

"It was a stupid mistake," she said. Nouanounou says she spent the next few months waiting for a written deportation order but never got one. Immigration officials say it was issued in March 1999, according to documents provided by the family.

"I just supposed that a decision was not taken," she said. "I thought maybe we should just disregard."

So she stayed and, in August 1999, she became Mrs. Gervais Nouanounou.

Meeting leads to jail

She flew under the government's radar for years, even as she had kids, obtained a mortgage and learned to bake chocolate-chip cookies. After holding a series of jobs, she became a stay-at-home mom when her husband got a job working nights in a pharmaceutical company microbiology lab.

She said she did not hide. In 2001, she even announced her presence to immigration authorities by applying for legal residency, documents provided by the family show.

Nouanounou said she believed she was on the cusp of legal status. So she said she didn't fret when immigration authorities asked to meet with her last month -- until someone walked in and called her a fugitive.

Now she is in jail, unsure whether she will ever again set foot in her family's home.

Her kids know only that their mother is on a trip. Gervais tells them she will be home soon.

"Where is Mommy?" they asked at a recent dinner, according to David Mpongo, Noellie Nouanounou's uncle. "When is she coming home?"

"I don't know what I'm going to tell them," he said later.

Gervais Nouanounou knows he cannot follow his wife back home if she is deported. He doesn't want to raise their children in a land hobbled by political tumult, bandit militias and disease.

"Things are very terrible there," he said. "I know they're not going to make it in Africa."

But he cannot take care of the kids on his own. In the days after immigration authorities scooped up his wife, he sent them to stay at Mpongo's house on a Cary cul-de-sac. Nouanounou spent most of his time there, too.

Mpongo reminded him to eat and helped pay for Noellie Nouanounou's short but expensive collect calls from jail.

During a July 28 call, Ochlie, 4, took the phone and, at her mother's request, began singing.

"Fathers and mothers, the Bible is a mirror of life eternal forever," she sang in Kikongo, her mother's native tongue.

Nouanounou sobbed.

"Hey, look," her husband said after Ochlie finished. "We need to have hope and faith. Keep praying."

Staff writer Toby Coleman can be reached at 829-8937 or tcoleman@newsobserver.com.

3 kids born after the deportation order, have a nice trip

No pity here!!! Break our laws and pay the consequences!! She can always take her children and husband with her. Sounds reasonable to me.

Those left behind must decide whether to continue their lives in the United States or uproot their children, who are U.S. citizens.

I think if this were ever challenged in court, it would be ruled that the 14th ammendment was never mean't to apply to children born here to illegal alien parents. At the children's current ages, they would hardly be "uprooted".

Funny, they had no problem seperating themselves from their families when they migrated to this country illegally, now that they are being deported all of a sudden it's now and issue? Screw them.

"I keep thinking about why is this happening," he said. "Why this kind of experience? Why we have three kids. Why this had to happen."

Well, lets see. Your wife is a liar who tried to circumvent federal immigration laws, ignored a deportation order and then started popping out anchor babies hoping that would help.

"I keep thinking about why is this happening," he said. "Why this kind of experience? Why we have three kids. Why this had to happen."

Because your wife broke the law, that's why it happened. DOYY!!!

a native of the Republic of Congo in West Africa.

They are quick to deport OTMs, but had she been from another country ?? she would still be here having children.

Well, lets see. Your wife is a liar who tried to circumvent federal immigration laws, ignored a deportation order and then started popping out anchor babies hoping that would help.

Circumvent the system? Heck, where I come from they call what she did fraud. She submitted false information in the hopes of obtaining a benefit!

In the simplest terms, fraud occurs when someone knowingly lies to obtain benefit or advantage or to cause some benefit that is due to be denied. If there is no lie, there may be abuse but it is not fraud.

I find it interesting that her immediate family won't follow her. Love conquers all? Only if it's easy and convenient.