Photo by Lauren Victoria Burke, Miami Herald.
Friends of Juan Gomez, led by best friend Scott Elfenbein, right, and Jacob Hart, next to him in shirt and tie, arrive at the Office of House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.
CONGRESS | JUAN GOMEZ
Gomez case not on Congress' agenda
Juan Gomez, a Colombian-born Miami teen who faces deportation, won't get a hearing before members of Congress until at least September.
BY LESLEY CLARK
lclark@MiamiHerald.com
August 3, 2007
WASHINGTON --
Congress will leave Washington today for its summer recess without taking up the case of Juan Gomez, a Colombian-born Miami teen who faces deportation.
The House immigration subcommittee is scheduled to meet today, but the private bill filed on Gomez's behalf by Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, isn't on the agenda.
The news came as a disappointment to Gomez's former Killian Senior High classmates and friends who had lobbied in Washington on his behalf for three days.
But the teenagers vowed to keep pushing to find a way to keep Gomez in the United States, where he has lived since he was 2 years old.
''We can't be upset. We have to keep working,'' said Joanna Perdomo, 18, a friend of Gomez's and a Coral Reef Senior High graduate.
The teens continued Thursday to plot strategies and plan to return to Miami today. They have already been credited with securing Gomez and his family a 45-day reprieve from deportation.
Gomez's supporters noted that the House subcommittee will still have time to take up his case when Congress returns in early September.
Republicans on the subcommittee have objected to hearing the private bills, but chairwoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said Thursday she hopes to get it scheduled.
''We're trying to work through this in an orderly, bipartisan way,'' she said. ``We have until Sept. 14, and I don't know that there is bipartisan agreement yet, but I think we're going to have substantially more communication and a lot of personal time.''
The students also said they may talk to Florida's two senators, who could grant Gomez a reprieve until at least January 2009 by filing a private bill in the Senate on his behalf.
A spokesman for Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson noted that senators rarely file private bills and that Nelson used the bill filed in the House to push for a delay in deportation proceedings.
Sen. Mel Martinez could not be reached for comment.
The students are also hoping to return to lobby for passage of the stalled Dream Act, a bill that would offer students who grew up in the United States a chance at legal residency.
The Senate sponsor, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is trying to attach the bill to a critical defense spending bill that will be taken up in the fall.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/191218.html
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