NEWS
9
Sanctuary But No Solutions for Alex Garcia Written by
DOYLE MURPHY
S
ince the day Alex Garcia took sanctuary in a Maplewood church nearly two and a half years ago, his family and supporters have tried a little of everything to persuade federal immigration officials to let him stay in this country. They have gone to Washington to meet members of Congress at their offices. hey’ e collected hundreds of signatures from people li ing in the family’s former hometown of Poplar Bluff. hey’ e marched and organi ed, hired lawyers and prayed. nd yet, they still couldn’t get past the front door of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in t. ouis last wee . “Obviously, something is broken here,” Maplewood Mayor Barry Greenberg said. On February 25, Maplewood issued a proclamation in favor of allowing Garcia to remain in the nited tates. hen, on February 27, Greenberg went with t. ouis lderwoman nnie Rice and Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green to hand deliver an application to delay an immigration udge’s order from to deport Garcia to his native Honduras. The idea was that maybe three elected officials would succeed where his family had failed in attempting to get ICE to at least review their latest application. arcia’s wife arly had tried in eptember to submit forms but was told to go away. A contingent of a do en pastors tried again in ctober . officials loc ed the doors to the office and sent Department of Homeland ecurity officers who handle security for the Robert A. Young federal building to cut the pastors off before they arrived. After a tense standoff, during which the pastors were threatened with arrest,
Carly Garcia’s eyes well with tears after she learns ICE won’t even look at her husband’s application. | DOYLE MURPHY
Alex Garcia has been living in Christ Church for more than two years. | DOYLE MURPHY an ICE supervisor agreed to take the paperwork for review. The application was rejected three weeks later. ast wee , officials again refused to accept the paperwork, telling the three that accepting the earlier application from the pastors in had been a mista e. As far as ICE is concerned, Garcia is an uncooperative fugitive. An agency official told the aplewood mayor and two t. ouis alderwomen that they would need a supervisor in Chicago to review
the paperwork. hat’s a difficult maneu er, gi en that the t. ouis officials won’t even receive the application to pass along, says Rice, who is also an immigration attorney. Another avenue would be for Garcia to come in for an interview with ICE agents, the immigration officials suggested. e’d be immediately deported to Honduras,” Rice says. arcia’s deportation order is from an early attempt to enter the nited tates after lea ing onduras. He was caught and deport-
riverfronttimes.com
ed in but returned four years later and settled in Poplar Bluff. n the fifteen years since, he has built a life as a tireless construction worker, father and husband. He and Carly have been married for a decade, and they ha e fi e ids between them. he and the ids are all . . citi ens. In the past, the family worked with an attorney in hopes of securing citi enship for arcia as well, but the deportation order from effecti ely cuts off that path. He would have to return to Honduras and restart the process from there. That would take ten years under normal circumstances, immigration attorneys say, but the Trump administration has not only sought to toss out people like Garcia, it has choked the pathway to legal entry as well. If Garcia was forced to leave, his family worries he might be kept from ever returning. Under the Obama administration enforcement policies that prioriti ed iolent criminals rather than people had screened and determined were not a threat, Garcia was granted year-long delays of the deportation order in and . ut his annual re uest was denied in after rump’s
MARCH 4-10, 2020
Continued on pg 10
RIVERFRONT TIMES
9
