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Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

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Monday, January 23, 2012

Deportee Struggles to Readjust to Life Outside Phoenix

The Arizona Republic (By Daniel Gonzalez): This is how Miguel Aparicio spends his days now after the former Phoenix high-school cross-country coach was deported to Mexico in June.

Up at 7 or 7:30, he has breakfast. A cup of coffee and a tortilla. A little bit of chile, some beans.

Then it's time to take the 26 sheep on his parents' small farm in Guanajuato out to pasture. He grabs his wooden stick. On the way out the door, his mom might hand him a little bolillo sandwich to eat up in the mountains, where he watches over the herd until dinnertime.

"I feel so depressed," Aparicio said in fluent English one recent day. "Sometimes when I'm dreaming, I wake up in the middle of the night and I think I'm in Phoenix. But then I look around and I realize, no, I'm not."

Last year, President Barack Obama's administration launched a new deportation policy that could let thousands of illegal immigrants remain in the country indefinitely.

But the policy came too late for Aparicio, 38.

The policy instructs immigration-enforcement officials to use prosecutorial discretion to close the cases of illegal immigrants who have ties to the community and have not committed any offenses other than being in the country illegally in order to focus resources on deporting serious criminals.

It was announced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton onJune 17, the same day Aparicio was scheduled to be deported.

Aparicio's lawyer, Jose Luis Peñalosa, quickly filed a motion asking immigration officials to grant Aparicio a reprieve under the new policy.

"We think this was the first test case," Peñalosa said.


Favorable factors

Peñalosa argued that the new policy applied to Aparicio for several reasons.

For one, he was a longtime resident of the U.S., one of the positive factors listed by Morton in his memo for exercising discretion. Aparicio's grandmother had brought Aparicio to Arizona when he was 15 and he had lived in this country for more than half his life.

He was a good student, another factor in his favor. Not only had Aparicio graduated from Carl T. Hayden High School, he had attended Phoenix and Yavapai community colleges on running scholarships. And although he didn't graduate, he also had studied at Grand Canyon University on a cross-country scholarship.

He was a good worker, another factor. Aparicio had learned how to install electrical outlets and switches while working for several electrical companies and eventually completed a program for electricians at Gateway Community College.

He also had strong ties to this country and had contributed to the community. Aparicio had volunteered to help coach cross country for 12 years at several Phoenix high schools, and in 2007, 2009 and 2010 helped Alhambra High School win state titles. He was known for helping high-school students get into college and for using his own money to buy running gear for athletes.

But Aparicio also had a stain on his past.

In June 2003, he was arrested for drunken driving.

The night it happened, Aparicio said, he was supposed to attend a church service with a friend. But when the friend didn't show, Aparicio accepted an invitation to go out with another friend.

Aparicio said he usually does not drink. But that night, the pair stopped at several bars and stayed out until 3 in the morning.

On the way home, Aparicio said, he turned in front of an oncoming car at the intersection of 16th Street and McDowell Road in Phoenix. No one was hurt in the crash, he said. Police booked him into jail. Court records show that he was charged with extreme DUI and leaving the scene of an accident.

In jail, Aparicio said, he gave officers the fake Social Security number he used for work and they let him go. Aparicio later pleaded guilty. At the time, Aparicio had a valid driver's license, which he got before Arizona passed a law barring illegal immigrants from getting a license. As part of his sentence, however, he said, his driver's license was suspended. He also said he spent a night in jail and paid $4,500 in fines and for driving classes.


Back to Mexico

After his arrest, Aparicio continued to live illegally in the country for years.

Then on April 23, 2008, Aparicio said, he was stopped by a Pinal County sheriff's deputy in Casa Grande. Aparicio said he was on his way to install ceiling fans for a friend's mother. Aparicio said the deputy told him he had illegally driven past a stopped school bus, but he doesn't recall seeing the bus.

The deputy discovered that Aparicio's driver's license had been suspended.

Aparicio said the deputy suspected that he was in the country illegally when Aparicio admitted he didn't have a valid Social Security number.

The deputy called the Border Patrol. Agents came and drove him and a passenger, who was also undocumented, to Tucson.

Aparicio said his passenger agreed to be deported immediately. But Aparicio said he decided to try to fight his deportation in immigration court because he had lived in this country for so long.

Aparicio said he was held at a federal detention center in Eloy for two months. Friends then paid the $5,000 bond for his release while his case was pending in court.

Aparicio hired a lawyer who he says advised him he had little chance of winning. Aparicio says the lawyer suggested he accept voluntary removal, a form of deportation that allows people with pending deportations to remain in the country for several months while they prepare to leave.

Meanwhile, his story was featured in a long profile in the September 2010 edition of Runner's World magazine.

After several court extensions, the date for Aparicio to leave the country was finally set: Friday, June 17, 2011.

Morton, the ICE director, announced the new deportation policy the same day. Aparicio decided to wait until the following Monday to turn himself in to ICE in hopes of buying some time. In the meantime, his new lawyer, Peñalosa, filed legal papers asking ICE to let him stay.

Several dozen of his runners from Alhambra High and supporters gathered outside the ICE detention center on Central Avenue in Phoenix as Aparicio walked inside. The story was covered by several local television news stations.

The small crowd waited for word for several hours. About 2 p.m., Aparicio said, ICE officials loaded him into a van with two other illegal immigrants. He said none of his supporters was still out on the sidewalk when they drove away and took him to the border in Nogales three hours away.

An ICE officer handed him a bottle of water before Aparicio walked through the gate in Nogales back into Mexico.

"That was it," Aparicio said.


No reason given

Aparicio is one of the 396,906 people the United States deported in fiscal year 2011, the highest number ever.

Because he did not leave the day he was supposed to, Aparicio was also banned from coming back to the U.S. for 10 years.

Peñalosa said ICE officials decided not to exercise discretion in Aparicio's case but didn't give a reason.

He believes, however, that "the fundamental reason" ICE officials turned him down was because Aparicio didn't have any close relatives who are U.S. citizens, a requirement to qualify for legal status. That, and the DUI, Peñalosa said.

After he was deported, Aparicio said, three of his former runners drove down to meet him in Nogales, Sonora, across the border from Arizona.

They brought him some of his clothes and gave him $600 to pay for his transportation to Guanajuato, in central Mexico. Aparicio said he took a bus to Leon, the state's largest city, and then hired a taxi to drive him the rest of the way to La Angostura.

For the past six months, Aparicio has been living with his parents in their farming town of 150 people.

With hours to kill, Aparicio has plenty of time to text some of his ex-runners back in Phoenix on his cellphone.

"Hey, what's up?" he wrote to one recently. "How is the team doing? Do you miss me?"

"Hey, what's up coach?" the runner replied. "Yes, we do miss you."

Aparicio hadn't been back to Mexico in more than 20 years. He said adjusting to life on his parents' little ranch was difficult. For weeks, Aparicio said, he mostly sat around the three-room house and did nothing.

Jobs were available picking corn and beans on local farms, Aparicio said. But they paid only about 110 pesos a day, or about $11. In Phoenix, Aparicio said, he was earning $20 an hour as an electrician. He couldn't bring himself to work for such little money.

"No. No. No. That is not what I am going to do," Aparicio said during one of several telephone interviews.


Search for decent pay

Aparicio said some of his friends in Phoenix have urged him to try to sneak back into the United States illegally. He knows some people who have done so.

But Aparicio said that is not something he would consider doing. Immigration officials warned him he would go to jail if caught re-entering illegally.

Plus, he said, "I won't feel right if I go back illegally. Everybody knows me."

More recently, Aparicio said, he was starting to get back on his feet. He started running again, logging up to 7 or 8 miles a day through the mountains. In the evenings, he has also been coaching some local children in soccer, his other passion.

Next month, Aparicio plans to move to either Mexico City or Leon. He hopes he will have a better chance of finding a decent-paying job in a big city. He has years of experience working as an electrician, and in college he studied to be a teacher.

But his ultimate goal is to return to the United States someday.

"I am just waiting to see if they change something about immigration," he said. "I am just hoping because I do not feel like the ICE officers were really fair with me. They just looked at the negative stuff. They did not look at the positive stuff. And I have a lot. I know for sure that one day I will be back."

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