From Street to School and Beyond: Hope for a Young Honduran
Marco Sanchez never knew his biological father. His stepfather brutalized Marco and younger siblings. At age seven Marco began to work in a nearby store to earn money to support his family. Five years later, tired of the constant physical abuse he suffered at home and frustrated by his inability to protect his mother, Marco left home for good.
He became one of the street children of Honduras. Life was not easy. Marco joined a street gang for protection. During this time he met a good family who owned a hotel. Marco began to work for them in exchange for a safe, clean sleeping room. But his former protectors in the gang resented what they saw as his abandonment and betrayal. A friend warned Marco that gang members planned to kill him. And so Marco fled Honduras.
Fear of persecution
He worked his way through Mexico by picking up small jobs along the way. When he entered the United States, he was apprehended and placed in detention. The immigration judge in Harlingen, TX, granted Marco asylum, based on his fear of persecution by the street gangs if he were returned to Honduras. The judge assigned Marco to a shelter for unaccompanied minors. Eventually Marco was transferred into the care of Bethany Christian Services in Grand Rapids, MI.
Government attorneys appealed the immigration judge's decision, and the Board of Immigration Appeals sustained the appeal. Marco faced deportation orders. His attorney applied for "special immigrant juvenile status" on Marco's behalf. This rule allows children who are victims of abuse, neglect, or abandonment to obtain their permanent residency here in the United States. Marco's attorney applied for a stay of deportation and told Marco that it was unnecessary to report for his deportation while the stay and the application for his new status were pending.
Exemplary student and athlete
While waiting, Marco attended high school here in the United States and lived with an American family. He was an exemplary student and graduated high school with honors-not bad for someone who spoke no English when he arrived and had very little schooling in his native country. He excelled in soccer, boxing, and track. Even more importantly, he gave back to the community, tutoring other students who needed special assistance in learning English. His foster mother, an American who thinks of Marco as her own son, says none of these accomplishments can fully convey how respectful, hardworking, and morally upstanding Marco is.
On the advice of his attorney, Marco applied for employment authorization. When he appeared for an appointment at the immigration service, he was promptly arrested and jailed for failure to report for his deportation. Marco's foster mother immediately contacted his attorney, who reiterated his assertion that under the law it was unnecessary for Marco to report for deportation while an application for a stay was pending. Officials for Immigration and Customs Enforcement disagreed-and Marco was forced to suffer the consequences. Although neither convicted nor charged with even a single crime, Marco was forced to remain in jail for three months awaiting deportation to Honduras-a country where he had no family, and where he was likely to be murdered by vengeful gang members.
JFON seeks rare private bill
It was after Marco's surprising arrest and incarceration that Marco's foster mother contacted Danny Upton, a Church and Community Worker and the regional attorney for Justice for Our Neighbors in Grand Rapids. JFON, a program of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, provides free legal representation to vulnerable immigrants and refugees. Danny met with Marco's foster mother and devised a plan to seek a private bill on Marco's behalf.
Private bills are an extraordinarily rare measure. Only nine were passed in the 105th Congress, 18 in the 106th, and only one in the 107th. Danny issued an appeal to United Methodists throughout the West Michigan Conference, urging them to contact Senator Carl Levin, who could sponsor a private bill on Marco's behalf. Senator Levin's office received a great outpouring of support for the proposed bill.
Meanwhile, Marco was transferred to a different detention facility in Detroit and was placed on a plane for Honduras. Senator Levin intervened. When Marco's plane landed in Miami, immigration authorities ordered him back to Michigan. Before the end of that week, Marco had been released from jail and given employment authorization.
Marco Sanchez is not out of the woods yet. The private bill that provided him relief is now in committee, and we are awaiting a vote in the committee to forward the bill to the full Senate for consideration.
