Thread: Spanish Publisher deported

Posted on Sat, Apr. 15, 2006email thisprint thisreprint or license this
Prominent local publisher deported
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS - The publisher of a Spanish-language newspaper has been deported, ending a five-year legal battle over her immigration status.

Cecilia Velazquez was escorted into Mexico on Friday and will be barred from re-entering the United States for 10 years, said Carl Rusnok, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency.

Velazquez, 36, is publisher of Red Latina, a Spanish-language newspaper. "Red Latina" means Latin network. She also is president of Radio CuCui, a group that brings ethnic performers and commentators to WEW-AM radio.

"I'm devastated," Velazquez said from her cell phone, as she stood in Juarez, Mexico, an hour after being escorted back into her homeland. "No doubt they used me as an example."

Her attorney, Raymond R. Bolourtchi, said her departure "can only hurt and damage the Hispanic community. She was their voice."

Rusnok said Velazquez was given two weeks to return to Mexico after officials who stopped her in December 2000 in Houston determined she was "actually an intending immigrant." Velazquez had entered the country on a visitors visa.

Despite the order to leave, Velazquez remained in the country and was arrested in 2003 in St. Louis.

Though she lost a series of appeals, she was hopeful letters of support written by politicians including U.S. Sen. Jim Talent and U.S. Reps. William Lacy Clay Jr. and Russ Carnahan would stave off her deportation.

"All the big guys were trying to get a special deal for me," she said.

Lydia Padilla, president of TRC Staffing Services in St. Louis, which places Spanish-speaking workers with area employers, advertised in Red Latina.

She said the paper is the most respected in the Hispanic community, and the only local paper that is 100 percent Spanish.

"I did not know her legal status, but what I do know is she donated lots of time and money to needy causes," Padilla said.

http://www.belleville.com/mld/bellevill ... 351485.htm

I wonder what those 5 years of trying to get her out racked up in legal cost? Good ridance.

Buh-Bye. :P