Hypocrite Mexico: "No jobs for foreigners!"
fightb...@my-deja.com
Saturday, December 25, 1999
Immigration law separates family
Mom must return to Mexico
By KAREN AHO
Daily News reporter
Blanca and Alvaro Echeverri's marriage has always had to give way to
the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Tonight it does so again.We Get E-Mail.......
"As a Colombian, Alvaro can't work in Mexico." Well my, oh, my, oh, my!
Naughty, naughty Mexico! Shame on you for being so obsessed with
sovereignty!
At 1:20 a.m. Sunday, Blanca will board a plane for Mexico while Alvaro
and their two sons stay in Anchorage, the family's home of 11 years.
Because of INS regulations, it could be at least 15 months, or as much
as five years, before they are together again.
"There's no family law in immigration law. There's nothing to keep
families together. That's the bottom line," Alvaro Echeverri said.
"Blanca's my wife. Blanca's my love. Blanca's a beautiful mother."
Blanca is a Mexican citizen. Alvaro is Colombian. They met while she
was a journalism and art student in Mexico City. Alvaro had finished a
tour of duty in Colombia's navy and was touring Mexico, determined not
to return to a corrupt homeland. A kindly older woman had invited him
to a party, and Blanca walked in from a siesta. Still rubbing her eyes
and smoothing her hair, she was beautiful. Two years later, they
married. She was 21, he 23.
From the beginning, their nationalities posed a problem.
As a Colombian, Alvaro can't work in Mexico. And he doesn't want to
raise a family in Colombia. Torn by civil war and rife with rumors of
child kidnappings, the South American country is too dangerous, he said.
So the couple chose the American Dream. Their sons, Dani, 10, and Ivan,
6, are U.S. citizens. Alvaro has earned enough by working two jobs to
buy the family a roomy house near the universities. For years he was a
well-known waiter at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art cafe.
Blanca, a poet and artist, wrote and illustrated a bilingual children's
book that's landed her readings in Anchorage and invitations to
conferences in the Lower 48. She started a Spanish reading program for
children at Loussac Library, speaks to bilingual classes in the
Anchorage School District, and provides guide books for teachers.
Her efforts so impressed people that, when her last visa application
was denied this spring, U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, sponsored
a rare private relief bill on her behalf. If it passes, Blanca will be
a citizen.
But such bills rarely pass, said Robert Eddy, director of the INS's
Alaska district. It may not come up for a congressional vote until
March 2001.
The INS can't deport her in the meantime. But remaining here is a
gamble. If she stays 180 days without a visa and the bill fails, she
will be excluded from the country for three years. If she stays a year,
she will be barred for 10 years.
Neither the Echeverris nor Murkowski's Anchorage office knew about that
provision, part of the massive Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of 1996, until she had accrued three to five years
of penalty time.
When she finally learned about it in August, an immigration judge
granted her a 120-day visa extension. The extension expires Sunday.
"He was really trying to keep our family together," said Blanca,
34. "He said this is the best we can do for this family."
Eddy said Blanca Echeverri can't continue to live here on tourist visas
because she has established residency here.
Blanca obtained a series of such visas for 11 years, leaving the United
States every six months so she could requalify. She and her husband
said it was her only option because she couldn't quality for a work
permit.
Eddy said he wasn't familiar enough with the case to know if that was
so. But he said he was certain her residency disqualified her for
another visa.
"That is inconsistent with a tourist visa," Eddy said. "All of her ties
are in the U.S."
Blanca and Alvaro have told the boys that she is going to Mexico to
work on another book. They want to ease them slowly into the truth.
"They feel excited. They ask me, 'How long are you going to be gone?' I
said, 'I don't know, but if it's not soon you're going to come join me
in summer.' "
Alvaro will stay behind and work. He can't re-enter the country if he
leaves because he lied about having a job in order to get a work permit
when he first arrived. He has been in the United States on a series of
work permits and won permanent resident status in 1997. He can apply
for citizenship in 2002. If he becomes a citizen, he can bring Blanca
back.
Eddy said there are millions of people with stories, all equally sad,
waiting for a limited number of visas.
"I don't see anything particularly compelling in this case that I don't
see in every other case, that the spouse of a permanent legal alien is
up against the numerical limitation," he said. "I think the theme here
is orderly immigration. You wait your turn outside the United States."
Blanca plans to stay with her mother in Cuernavaca, in central Mexico,
where she will write and illustrate her next book.
Today, she and Alvaro are concentrating on having a good Christmas.
"If they can remember the day I left, I want them to remember happy
things," Blanca said. "I want to show them the pretty world."
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
BK
fightb...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Alvaro had finished a
> tour of duty in Colombia's navy and was touring Mexico, determined not
> to return to a corrupt homeland.
.....as opposed to Mexico, a nation that is universally reviled for its
corruption and human-rights abuses ! ha ha ha.
I hope that these people can gain U.S. citizenship--- if the story is true
then they are hard working and educated individuals---exactly the type of
person that this country needs in this time of self-indulgence and laziness
and semi-literacy.
http://205.252.89.138/
BK
http://home.earthlink.net/~bjking/
ICQ # 4557591