Where One Fight Ends, Another Begins

Mai was deported.

Yes, US Immigration threw aside family and logic for its arcane and faceless laws that cannot be contested in a court of law no matter what the circumstances may be.

My congressional contact, for all the hard work he did do, failed to communicate to me what was happening or even give me the chance to try to petition all of our supporters to call for a pardon. Instead the rug was pulled out from under us and I received a distraught call from my wife on the other side of the border before I knew anything had happened.

When Mai refused to be deported declaring that she had not signed for her voluntary departure, an ICE official informed her that she had indeed already signed it. He continued to explain that she had been lied to several months ago when an officer told her she was signing papers related to her asylum, when in reality she was signing her deportation.

Now she has been given a 20 year ban from returning to the U.S. and our family will suffer much separation and turmoil trying to live on two sides of a dangerous border. I will begin investigating if we can overcome this ban somehow and trying to get my wife setup in a safe place in Mexico.

I can't thank all of you enough for the support you've given us and I will keep you all informed of what our next move will be. Hopefully I can find some type of relief to help re-unite my family. If you have any political, legal or immigration support group contacts, please pass them along to me at:

bringmaihome [at] gmail [dot] com

I'll leave you with one bright note: my wife, after being detained and treated like a criminal, after being lied to by ICE officers, and after being separated from her family for such a long time only had this to say about the United States:

"I'm very thankful for everything the United States has given me, and I hope to get back as soon as possible"

Its hard even for me to appreciate my country that much, and I think the U.S. would be blessed with more citizens like my wife who loves the country so much.

Thank you all so much.