Immigrant siblings who worked undercover getting death threats
Published: Thursday, February 18, 2010
By PATRICIA DOXSEY

SAUGERTIES — The threats against Emilio and Analia Maya, who are facing deportation after working undercover for U.S. immigration officials, started coming the day after the story of their effort to remain in America became international news.

Now, each time the telephone rings at their restaurant, the Tango Café on Main Street in Saugerties, the brother and sister from Argentina wonder if it’s another death threat or threat against their young children.

Their e-mail is flooded with similar threats. And the thousands of online comments posted on Web sites of Argentine newspapers that carried the story of their plight earlier this week portray the siblings as traitors to their people and country, and some warn that harm will befall them or their children, who were born here and are American citizens, if they return to Argentina. (The Freeman reported on the Mayas’ plight on Jan. 10, and the Freeman and many other news organizations published an Associated Press story about the situation on Sunday.)

The Mayas are taking the threats seriously. They’ve placed a small tape recorder on their phone to capture the angry calls. They plan to turn the tape over to their lawyer, who will give it to police. And they have resigned themselves to the fact that if they are forced to leave the country they had hoped to make their home, they will not be returning to the land of their birth.

“If I get deported, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not going to Argentina,â€