In one of the strangest immigration stories, Mohamad Nakhal has recently been detained and faces a 50% chance of deportation - even though he has been in the U.S. legally for 18 years and is married to an American citizen. He has not committed any crime - he has not escaped from any crime in his home country. His main transgression was that he did not attend college full-time on his student visa shortly after his arrival from Lebanon in 1989. He has been able to stay here because he has consistently appealed INS (previous name of ICE) decisions.
He married his second wife, also an American citizen in February of 2007. After the wedding she immediately began the process of sponsoring his request for a green card. He was detained the following day.
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Posted on Mon, Oct. 15, 2007
Man's deportation has loomed for 13 years
Miami Herald
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
Mohamad Nakhal's legal journey in America is a study in frustration.
Like many undocumented immigrants, Nakhal arrived legally in the United States but didn't leave when required, thus joining the ranks of the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
Since Nakhal arrived via Syria in June 1989, the Lebanese man has been aggressively -- and legally -- trying to stay in the United States, first through a student visa, then filing for residency after a marriage to a U.S. citizen, and then again after a second marriage.
But just as forcefully, U.S. immigration authorities have been trying to get rid of him.
At 40, Nakhal has lived most of his adult life here. His children are American, and his wife is a naturalized U.S. citizen. Yet after 18 years of attempts, he's still without a green card.
Immigration authorities have failed to deport him despite repeated U.S. government orders for him to leave.
Now at the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade, Nakhal was picked up by immigration agents at his Davie home last month -- leaving behind a bewildered new wife and four children.
The case is a prime example of the broken immigration system, one where federal authorities encounter obstacle after obstacle in trying to expel immigrants who fight legally to stay. It also highlights the wrenching disruption that stepped-up enforcement causes to families of longtime undocumented immigrants forcibly taken from their homes where they have built prosperous lives with spouses and children.
''For immigration to work, it has to work fast,'' Krome immigration Judge Denise Slavin said in court during a recent case unrelated to Nakhal's. ``Otherwise, the person develops relationships, roots in the community and deportation can be a wrenching experience.''
That's what happened Sept. 6 when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers showed up at the crack of dawn at Nakhal's Davie home.
The life Nakhal had built with his wife Luissy Navarro, 34, and their four children from previous marriages was abruptly upended.
''One moment he was in our lives, the family man, helping me and the children, helping with their homework, helping with the mortgage, and then the next moment he was gone,'' said Navarro, a secretary at a doctor's office. ``It was as if he was dead.''
Nakhal, a convenience store manager, feels the same emptiness. ''It was very devastating,'' he said in telephone interviews from the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade. ``My wife was crying. My kids were hysterical. It's very sad because it not only quashed all my dreams, hopes and aspirations for the future, for me and my family, but also they killed my present life.''
OFFICIALS FRUSTRATED
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not comment on the case because of privacy laws. But immigration officials often have said they are frustrated in carrying out deportation orders because immigrants who lose their cases continue to fight legally in the courts, or their home countries refuse to take them back.
One stepped-up enforcement measure the Department of Homeland Security unveiled in August seeks to prevent immigrants from reopening cases after they have promised a judge to leave the country. Nakhal reneged on such a promise, he says, when his circumstances changed -- he married a U.S. citizen -- and he filed a motion to appeal.
Barbara Gonzalez, a Miami spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said sometimes delays are unavoidable because of due process rights.
Since 2006, new rules allow the U.S. government to deport tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants within hours or days after being caught along the U.S. southern border. But those detained in major metropolitan areas like Miami-Fort Lauderdale sometimes can legally prolong their stay if they hire attorneys and fight deportation efforts in immigration and federal courts.
After Nakhal arrived in 1989, he switched his visitor visa to a student permit to study business administration at Broward Community College. But he failed to attend school full time.
Agents with the then-U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service discovered Nakhal in 1994 after receiving a tip. Instead of putting him in detention until his case was resolved, as would likely happen today, INS released him and ordered him to appear in immigration court later.
Nakhal showed up and asked for asylum.
Miami immigration Judge Teófilo Chapa denied his request in 1997 but gave him voluntary departure, meaning Nakhal could leave the country without being forcibly put on a plane.
He didn't leave.
Nakhal appealed the ruling, which the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed in July 1998.
Nakhal says he chose to stay after losing the appeal to continue fighting the case because by then he was married to his first wife, a U.S. citizen, and had a child. The INS endorsed Nakhal's motion to reopen the case.
A NEW APPEAL
By the time Chapa ruled a second time to deport Nakhal in 2005, he had separated from that wife.
Nakhal appealed, but the Board of Immigration Appeals again dismissed the case in November.
By then Nakhal had moved in with Navarro and her three children. They got married this past Valentine's Day.
Navarro then followed the law. She filed a visa petition for him. In May, Nakhal filed a motion to reopen his case, citing his new marriage.
This time Homeland Security refused to endorse the motion.
The next day Nakhal was arrested.
It may or may not be the end of Nakhal's journey.
He has a 50-50 chance of being deported. He may be released under supervision if Lebanon does not issue a travel document.
for link to Miami Herald article, click title to this post
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