Thread: Sob story!?!5th Grader Could Be Deported Without Mom

5th Grader Could Be Deported Without Mom
By PETER PRENGAMAN
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- At the age of just 8, Jonathan Martinez and a teenage cousin set out from El Salvador to the United States in search of his mother, whom he hadn't seen for four years.

U.S. Border Patrol agents caught Jonathan trying to cross the border into Arizona and turned him over to his mother.

Now 10, he's learned English, joined a soccer team and generally embraced life as an American fifth grader - except that Jonathan isn't here legally, and on Monday a judge could order him deported back to El Salvador.

Though his mother has been living and working legally near Los Angeles, a wrinkle in immigration law doesn't let her apply to keep him here.


"I don't want to go back because I'll be alone," said Jonathan.

His case illustrates a growing problem with the federal program known as "temporary protective status" under which Jonathan's mother is staying in the United States: what to do with thousands of kids from Central America who come to the United States illegally to join their parents.

The program provides legal residency to illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, all countries that have suffered devastating natural disasters in recent years. The idea is that they have little to return to and that they can best serve their homelands by working here and sending money home.

But only immigrants in the United States when a program starts - for Salvadorans, after two major earthquakes in 2001 - are eligible. That means children who come later to join parents don't qualify.

"It's only for an individual in the United States at the time it was designated," said Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Marie Sebrechts.

These youngsters are in a sort of immigration limbo.

"They come to be reunited with a parent and find out they can't stay," said Judy London from Public Counsel, a Los Angeles law office that represents immigrant minors.

Just under 115,000 children were caught attempting to illegally enter the United States last year, according to the Border Patrol. The majority were from Mexico, followed by Honduras and El Salvador.

The government doesn't count detained minors who have a parent with the temporary residency status, or those minors who are eventually deported.

However, immigration lawyers and advocates say such cases have skyrocketed in recent years. That's in part because what were created as temporary programs have become de facto permanent. Since El Salvador's program began in 2001, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has repeatedly extended it for the original recipients, who were initially given 18 months of legal U.S. residency. Today there are about 230,000 Salvadorans with the status, plus 85,000 Hondurans and Nicaraguans.

In the meantime, children who years ago were left with relatives have grown and become determined to find their parents. In some cases, the guardian relative has died, or the situation has become abusive and the child heads north out of desperation.

Immigration judges have some discretion and can decide that the government will no longer pursue deportation of a child whose parents have special residency.

Jonathan's lawyer, Julianne Donnelly, is hoping for that kind of a break Monday.

The boy's mother, Rosalia Montoya, 32, said that during phone conversations he often pleaded to be reunited with her, but she never imagined he would actually journey north.

Jonathan said he felt alone when the aunt he stayed with was hospitalized, so he and a cousin rode buses north for several weeks to reach the U.S. border.

Now Montoya worries about what she'll do if Jonathan is deported. The aunt who took care of him has since left El Salvador, she said, his grandparents are too old to take him in and his father disappeared years ago.

Montoya could move back, but worries about earning enough to raise Jonathan and his 3-year-old half sister, who was born in the United States.

"I say to myself: 'My God, what's going to happen when we go before the judge?'" she said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/ ... SECTION=US

Any mother that would leave children in another country for years does not deserve Legal Residency in the United States.

Deport the boy; Deport her.

Add the question to visas: Do you have minor children in your country that you are abandoning by entering the United States? If they do, visa is DENIED. If they lie and that lie is discovered, then they are DEPORTED.

The last thing the US needs more of are men or women who would abandon their children to emigrate to our country.

This tragedy encouraged by our absurd immigration policy makes me want to cry...after I throw up.

We read about how the illegals will leave their children behind to come to the US, but when they are caught here and deported, we hear the same old sob story about breaking up the family.

"I don't want to go back because I'll be alone," said Jonathan.

LOL! From the mouths of babes...

Amen, Judy!

There is a poll on AOL regarding this issue. 79% polled thought the child should be able to remain here in the United States with his mother. There have been over 15,000 people vote in the poll. I voted he should be deported. If the truth be known, which it never will - I'd almost bet his mother sent for him. It's beyond me how a mother could leave her child behind knowing full well she will may not ever see him/her again. Also, I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find out that part of her legalization process included asking her if she had a minor child or children living outside the United States.

I feel like these invaders are standing in my living room and demanding that I take care of them. They are not wanted or welcome here, so why can't they get the message? Do we have to tell them in Spanish?