Friends: Teen Deserves Chance To Avoid Deportation
Reading Grad Arrested After Minor Traffic Accident

CINCINNATI -- The community is coming together for an area high school graduate who's facing deportation after a traffic stop.

Friends said 18-year-old Bernard Pastor is a model student and deserves to stay in this country, where he's lived illegally for 15 years.

The Reading High School graduate came to the U.S. from Guatemala as a child with his parents, and authorities said Pastor is here illegally.

"This kid came to the U.S. when he was 3 years old," said Alfonso Cornejo, president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "He didn't drive here, he didn't jump -- he just came following his family."

Pastor was arrested Saturday when he was unable to produce a driver's license after a minor accident, but plans to deport him have been placed on hold after Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Steve Driehaus appealed to federal authorities on his behalf.

"This is a human rights issue," said Jason Riveiro, Ohio director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "At the end of the day, this is cruelty at its finest."

Friends held a vigil Tuesday evening to show their support for Pastor, who was selected homecoming king and dreamed of going to a seminary and serving as a minister.

Riveiro said Pastor's case could help win support for the Dream Act, a piece of proposed federal legislation that would afford some illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency under certain conditions.

"It comes at an interesting time when we are discussing the Dream Act because so many other students in similar situations that could be effected by this type of law," Rieveiro said.

Supporters plan to visit Pastor this weekend in jail in Morrow County, and a court hearing is planned on the deportation process.

Pastor said his father, a Pentecostal minister, told him Tuesday to continue to trust that what is happening to him is part of God's plan.

"He said that maybe I was to be someone whose life could help other people in the future who are in the same situation," Pastor said.

Despite the delay, the deportation order remains in place.

"It doesn't negate the order," Khaalid Walls, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said. "It's a delay, not a stay."

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His Dad is a preacher, what's wrong with this story. Using God to line his pockets.