Thread: Mixologist JP Caceres Could Be Deported on Friday

Mixologist JP Caceres Could Be Deported on Friday

Posted by Jessica Sidman on Feb. 19, 2014 at 3:30 pm

Mixologist JP Caceres may be forced to return to his native Bolivia on Friday, following his release in January after a month in an immigration detention center and a campaign by friends that raised more than $20,000 to help him fight to stay in the country.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed Caceres upon his release from the immigration detention center in Farmville, Va., that he needed to purchase an airline ticket to leave the country. Caceres was initially supposed to leave the country by Feb. 14, but because of the snowstorm, ICE pushed back the departure date until Feb. 21.

Meanwhile, Caceres' attorney Andres Benach has filed a stay of removal that could allow Caceres to remain in the country for at least another year. ICE has not yet reached a decision on whether it will grant that stay of removal, but it could happen up until the last minute, Benach says.

If Caceres is allowed to stay in the U.S., he still faces a trial in April on charges of simple assault, threats to do bodily harm, and possession of a prohibited weapon, after allegedly threatening a cab driver with an ice pick. Depending on the outcome, that case could further complicate his ability to stay in the U.S.

And if Caceres is not granted that stay of removal in the coming days, he will take himself to the airport on Friday, where he'll report to an ICE officer who will verify his departure. But Benach says he thinks Caceres still has a good chance of getting to stay, especially given how ICE has treated his case so far. For example, ICE released Caceres from the detention center in January even though it didn't have to, and "they delayed his departure, even though, in theory, he certainly could have flown out on Friday afternoon," Benach says.

If, however, Caceres is deported, he plans to fight to come back.

Having been in the U.S. illegally for more than a year, Caceres would be banned from returning here for 10 years, Benach says. However, he could apply for a "waiver of inadmissibility" that would allow him to return sooner, at the discretion of the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. Caceres could seek that waiver in conjunction with a visa at the U.S. embassy in La Paz, Bolivia.

Benach says that the U.S. will not give Caceres a tourist visa or a student visa; instead, he would need something called an O visa, "which is available to people of extraordinary ability... somebody who's reached the top of their field," Benach says.

"Certainly JP's success and awards and accolades and stature in the field of mixology would justify such a visa." (The bartender has created cocktails for restaurants such as Del Campo and MXDC and served as president of the D.C. chapter of the U.S. Bartenders Guild.)

Still, Benach says proving that Caceres deserves an O visa could be a cumbersome process that involves gathering articles, awards, and letters from supporters. "That takes time, and it's harder to do if the applicant is in Bolivia," Benach says.

Benach says one of Caceres' greatest assets will be his ties to the community. The attorney is also making the case in his application for the stay of removal that Caceres should have gotten his green card years ago, but didn't because of a bureaucratic backlog.

Caceres married a U.S. citizen in 2003, after which point he filed for a green card. Benach explains that process actually requires two separate applications: one filed by his wife that verifies their marriage and another for the green card itself filed by Caceres.

The first one was approved in 2005 after immigration officials interviewed the couple.

The second was delayed while ICE completed its background check.

Three years later, despite regular check-ins with ICE, Caceres still had no word on his green card application, Benach says. By that time, he and his wife had divorced.

When Caceres went to ask immigration officers what would happen next, they asked him for his divorce certificate, which he brought to them.

At that point, they denied his green card because he was no longer married to a U.S. citizen and began deportation proceedings.

In the years following the 9/11 attacks when additional background checks were mandated, Benach says there were "a significant number of cases" that were delayed because of an FBI background check backlog.

"It wasn't uncommon for us to see people who would say, 'My green card application's been pending for four years.

My green card application's been pending for two years,'" Benach says.

"And we would sue the immigration service on those cases in order to compel them to make a decision."

He says the vast majority of those cases were ultimately approved.

"If JP had sat on his rear end and just waited, those background checks would have completed at some point and they would have granted him a green card," Benach says.

Benach says Caceres will comply with whatever is asked of him next, whether he stays or goes. "He will do whatever the government decides," Benach says. "But he's hopeful."

Photo courtesy JP Cacere

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/b...ted-on-friday/

D.C. bar star J.P. Caceres avoids deportation for now

Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post -

J.P. Caceres.

By Tim Carman, Updated: Wednesday, February 19, 6:32 PM E-mail the writer

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official on Wednesday granted embattled bartender Juan “J.P.” Caceres-Rojas a three-month stay to remain in the United States to face criminal charges stemming from a December altercation with a D.C. cab driver.

Caceres-Rojas couldn’t be happier.

“This is definitely, definitely very good news,” says the mixologist who goes by the name, J.P. Caceres. “It takes a weight off my shoulders.”

It might sound odd for the Bolivian native, deemed an “immigrant fugitive” by ICE, to celebrate his day in D.C. Superior Court, but Caceres-Rojas was facing a worse fate: Unless he was granted a stay, the bartender would have been deported Friday to his home country, where he would have to wait 10 years to return to America. Caceres-Rojas was supposed to be deported Feb. 14, but he received a valentine from Mother Nature.

“Due the to snowstorm,” said Andres Benach, an immigration attorney representing Caceres-Rojas, ICE officials “weren’t able to oversee and monitor his departure.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Caceres-Rojas could breathe easier — at least for a little while. M. Yvonne Evans, field office director for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Washington Field Office, granted the bartender’s request for a stay of removal, but only for three months “to allow his current legal proceedings to be adjudicated,” according to an ICE spokesperson. An immigration judge had earlier ordered Caceres-Rojas’s deportation when he failed to voluntarily leave the country by Feb. 10, 2011.

Caceres-Rojas is facing three misdemeanor criminal charges connected to a Dec. 19 incident in the District: simple assault, threats to do bodily harm and possession of a prohibited weapon. A cab driver alleges Caceres-Rojas berated him and then placed the fare and an ice pick in his right hand, with the five-inch pick pointed toward the driver, and told the cabbie to “take the money.”

Both Caceres-Rojas and his criminal defense attorney, Danny Onorato, declined to comment on the case.

Caceres-Rojas’s battle with immigration authories became a cause for the local hospitality industry, where the bartender has been a fixture, known for his humor and good cheer. His company, Let’s Imbibe Beverage Consulting, has conducted training and developed cocktail programs for places such as Del Campo, Jackie’s Sidebar and MXDC.

His colleagues and friends came to the rescue when Caceres-Rojas landed in hot water: More than 250 of them donated $20,280 to his online campaign to raise legal funds.

During a phone interview Wednesday afternoon, Caceres-Rojas said he was grateful for the money, but it still won’t cover all his legal fees.

The bartender said, in fact, that as a result of his recent troubles he is essentially broke. Pisco Porton, the high-end Peruvian pisco, dropped him as the East Coast brand ambassador; the job had been providing most of his income, he said. Money generated from Let’s Imbibe, Caceres-Rojas added, has been rolled back into the company to help grow it.

But Caceres-Rojas also said he has reorganized Let’s Imbibe to give two of his business partners 49 percent of the company “to help me run it in case I have to leave the States. They will be taking care of my clients.” Caceres-Rojas said Let’s Imbibe just re-signed two clients, including Del Campo, and even inked a deal with a new establishment that has yet to open for business.

Should he eventually be deported to Boliva for a while, Caceres-Rojas said he has been talking with Victor Albisu, chef and owner behind Del Campo, about opening a South American location of his South American grill concept.

The bartender’s attorney is already preparing for Caceres-Rojas’s eventual deportation to Boliva. Benach is looking to bring Caceres-Rojas back on a so-called, temporary O-1 visa, reserved for “individuals with an extraordinary ability” in fields including the sciences, athletics and the arts. But to qualify for the visa, Benach must get a waiver from the 10-year ban. He thinks he can do that.

Back in March 2004 when Caceres-Rojas was married to an American, his wife filed a “petition for alien relative,” which verifies the couple is lawfully married. At the same time, Caceres-Rojas applied for a green card. A year later in March 2005, Caceres-Rojas and his wife went in for interviews and their marriage was validated, but he would have to wait on a green card until the outcome of an FBI “name” or background check.

Caceres-Rojas waited more than three years for the background check.

It never came. In the meantime, the bartender got divorced in September 2007. The next year, Caceres-Rojas approached immigration officials to inform them about the divorce; that’s when, Benach said, the goverment revoked his green card petition and started deportation proceedings.

This backlog of background checks is not unusual, Benach said. Some immigrants have waited more than five years for their background checks. Caceres-Rojas was “stymied” from getting his green card, the attorney said. “The only effective way to get out of background checks was to sue” the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, he said.

Benach hopes the backlog — not to mention Caceres-Rojas’s status in the D.C. hospitality industry, which the attorney will have to detail in full — will be enough to secure his client a waiver from the 10-year ban.

There is one other potential stumbling block, of course: A conviction in his criminal case with the cabbie could sink Caceres-Rojas’s hope for a return.

His criminal trial is scheduled for April 7.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifest...942_story.html