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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us December 22, 2005 Father meets new baby, but in Mexico, not U.S. AHS grad leaves country to be with her husband who can’t return to States By Alan Panebaker Ashland Daily Tidings Trysta Barajas, the 2004 Ashland High School graduate whose husband was exiled to Mexico for 10 years under the Immigration and Nationality Act, has moved to Mexico with their child. After many fruitless attempts at challenging the legal situation, Trysta, Elijah (their baby son) and Gustavo (her husband) are all in the town of Tayahua in the state of Zacatecas, Mexico. “We’ve received a lot of phone calls from people with similar problems,” Sandy Womack, Trysta’s mother, said. “We’re corresponding to get a Web site up.” The Barajas’ struggle with the visa application process began this fall when Gustavo returned to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to complete his application. When the American consulate office asked Gustavo if he had left the United States and returned illegally after living here one year, he said yes. Because of sections 212(a)(9)(B)(II) and 212(a)(9)(C)(II) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, Gustavo is exiled from the United States for a decade even though he is married to a U.S. citizen. After petitioning all of the United States senators, Womack said, the family ran into a dead end. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., was the only one to return the family’s plight with a short form letter offering the family file an I-601 waiver of excludability emphasizing extenuating circumstances. According to Eugene immigration lawyer Raquel Hecht, the family has already tried this route. “That’s nice of Ted Kennedy to write a letter,” Hecht said, “but you can’t get that waiver if you live here one year, exit the country and return illegally.” The Barajas family is not the only one on the down-and-out list. Hecht said her firm, which deals strictly with immigration law, has 35 people on a list with a similar situation to that of Gustavo Barajas. “It’s really terrible what they’re doing to those people,” Hecht said. However, Hecht and her founding partner, Phillip Smith, saw a victory in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in an opinion published Dec. 6. In Tapia v. Gonzales, Hecht and Smith argued for cancellation of removal from the United States of José de Jesús Tapia. A Mexican citizen who was attempting to gain citizenship by, among other things, staying in the United States for a period of 10 years. An immigration judge denied Tapia’s petition for cancellation of removal because he had returned to Mexico in December of 1999 when his brother died. With the help of Hecht and Smith, Tapia appealed his case and won. Judges Alfred T. Goodwin, Richard R. Clifton and John S. Rhoades, Sr., ruled that Tapia’s brief departure did not interrupt his attempt at gaining residency. “A short departure from the United States, such as a brief return to the alien’s native country for family reasons, does not necessarily interrupt the accrual of an alien’s period of physical presence in the United States,” Judge Clifton wrote in the court’s opinion. The similarity between the Tapia case and the Barajas situation is that Gustavo Barajas was exiled because he admitted to returning to his native country when his grandfather died in 2000. However, the Tapia case does not change his immigration status because Barajas was not in the United States for 10 years. Without the miracle of another court decision in favor of immigrants who began their lives in the United States illegally, hope for Gustavo Barajas to return in the next 10 years is grim. As Trysta Barajas said before leaving for Mexico Nov. 3, “Everything we try ... comes to a dead end.” Trysta’s mother said she is enjoying her time in Mexico, teaching English to local children. The Barajas family has also opened a small store of sorts for the local community as they have been buying supplies in bulk for baby Elijah. “Trysta is having a lot of fun with the local culture,” Womack said. “She wants to come home, but they say no way. Ten years is 10 years.” DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Free Music Downloads Slippers Ceramic Piggy Banks Online Casinos FREE Entertainment Guide Calenders 2006 Calendar Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products best online casino tcg student loan consolidation teleconferencing Myspace Layouts cortisol; weight loss Diamonds Futures Broker Bad Credit Loans Auto & Personal Loans Search Engine Optimization Southern Oregon Loans Sportsbook Ztech Media Hosting Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Security Systems Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Student Loans Bonus Casino ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Mailing Lists Mystery Shopping Jobs Debt Consolidation Loans Canadian Pharmacy Casino Gambling Sites Backpacks Click Here .:Advertisements:. 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