"Separated by law" Story Featuring My Family

Hello anyone still keeping tabs on this blog, thank you first of all!

I just wanted to share a story that was just published about the issue of U.S. citizen families separated by seemingly harsh immigration laws, which includes a section on my family.

Center for Public Integrity: Separated by law: Families torn apart by 1996 immigration measure
There's also a radio story on The California Report.

Thanks to Amy Isackson (@borderamy) and Susan Ferris (@susanferris) for including us and for making others aware of the situation.

Its been a long time since I've posted anything here, but I've just been trying to keep my family together and happy, we've adjusted little by little and are trying to live with the situation.  My son and I commute down to Tijuana several days a week to spend time as a family.  We're hanging in there, and with renewed faith in God we've found a new sense of peace in this wicked world.

Thanx all, T.J.

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.

Our war rages on

To all those following our cause, I announce with a heavy heart that my dear wife and mother of my children Mai was denied her asylum case this morning. An overflowing courtroom, a spirited and articulated argument from our lawyer, and the tears of family and friends was not enough to convince the judge to give her case a chance.

I am blessed to have so many people who support our cause. To the 20+ people who came today, thank you. Especially considering our case was delayed over an hour and several people were not allowed to enter because we filled all the seats. To all of you, I am eternally grateful.

While this practically ends her chance at attaining asylum, this is just one lost battle, the war wages on and I will most likely need all of our supporters around the country and the globe to spread the word of our plight, as we may need to petition for high level government officials to intervene and provide us with a pardon, private bill, or other type of relief.

So, heal your wounds and spread words of our fight, we will never give up. This is about more than my wife, our children, or myself, rather it is about keeping families together.

Please spread the word.

http://www.facebook.com/bringmaihome

http://twitter.com/bringmaihome

http://bringmaihome.blogspot.com/

An update, and a Court Hearing

Hello,

For everyone who has been following my wife's case, I wanted to give an update.

My wife remains in an immigration detention center after 3 1/2 months as we still try to fight her deportation. After suffering through several slow and flawed immigration proceedings where Mai was not given adequate access to her attorney, we are appealing her asylum plea in court where the facts will presented before an immigration judge.

Her court date info is as follows:

Mai's Asylum Appeal

Friday January 14th 2011

8:00 AM - 9:00 AM

U.S. Immigration Court San Diego

401 West A Street Suite 800

San Diego, CA

Map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=401+West+A+Street+Suite+800+San+Diego,+CA&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=401+W+a+St,+San+Diego,+California+92101&gl=us&t=h&z=16

My lawyer said that having people attend the court is beneficial to her case and shows that my wife has support from her family, friends as well as the community. If you are in the San Diego area and can spare some time that Friday morning, your presence and support would be greatly appreciated.

The facebook event can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178565068833560

Apart from the legal process, I have been working with my local congressman's office to stay in contact with immigration to make sure they don't rush any decisions and see if there's any type of relief they can offer.

In any case, I'd like to re-iterate my thanks for your continued support, thanks to many generous people we met our campaign goal to pay for our initial legal expenses. If you wish to contribute, simply spread the word to friends or others who may share our concern:

Bring Mai Home on Facebook

Bring Mai Home on Twitter

You can still donate to help us pay for things like Mai's prepaid phone calls home so she can talk to us and to cover our ongoing legal fees.

Thank you so much from me and my family,

T.J. Barbour of Bring Mai Home

My Family Needs YOUR Support

Recently, my loving wife Maite (Mai for short) was turned over to US immigration and is now facing deportation. Even though both I and our children are US Citizens she runs the risk of being deported from the country, possibly for a lengthy period of time due to some unclear events in her immigration history. Meanwhile we are doing everything we can to keep her here in the U.S. and fight for our right as a family to be together. She is a loving and helpful person who was forced by poverty and persecution to come to this country a long time ago and has since given me the gift of our wonderful family.

Our children, Nidia and Lucas

She is currently waiting for an interview with immigration to determine the validity of her case and meanwhile has to stay in a detention facility away from our family. She can only accept visits on weekends and we have to pay for her to make outbound calls.

We've hired a good law office to handle her case and I've put some money in her accounts so she can make phone calls and buy bottled water at the facility she is staying at. The costs of her case are piling up, and while I'm not poor by any means these costs may be more than I can afford to pay. This is why I'm reaching out to all of you, to see if everyone can contribute a little bit to try and make sure we do everything we can to bring Mai home. If you are able, please make a donation by clicking on the donate button on the top right of the page. Every little bit helps no matter what amount. If you're not able to make a donation then please share our website with your friends, strength in numbers! You can find links to spread the word on the right using facebook/twitter. Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated!

Tell your friends to come to http://www.bringmaihome.blogspot.com or tinyurl.com/helpmai. You can find our facebook page and follow us on twitter.

You may have questions about why she was picked up by immigration, what costs we need to cover or what our financial goals are among other questions so stay tuned as I'll be adding more posts and information in the coming days. For now if you have questions you can leave a comment or email us at

bringmaihome [at] gmail [dot] com

Thank you for reading our story and please consider helping my family.

Thank you, T.J. Barbour