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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Guatemalan Janitor
In R.I. Wins Permanent
Residency
By Karen Lee Ziner
Boston – Gustavo Cabrera, one of 31
janitors arrested last year in a
high-profile raid on state courthouses,
yesterday won the right to remain
permanently in the United States, based on a
1997 law that legal experts say has provided
relief to fewer than 200,000 people.
U.S. Immigration Judge Francis L. Cramer
granted Cabrera’s permanent residency based
on the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Relief Act,
which provides relief from deportations to
certain Nicaraguans, Cubans, Salvadorans and
Guatemalans and other foreign nationals. The
judge said he was persuaded that Cabrera and
his family — his wife, a legal permanent
resident; and their four children who are
U.S. citizens — would face “considerable
hardship” should Cabrera be deported to
Guatemala, a country he left 25 years ago.
Cabrera, 49, the subject of a September 2008
Providence Journal article, is now eligible
for a green card and, eventually,
citizenship.
He is believed to be only the third
courthouse detainee to have won the right to
stay in the country. Earlier this year, one
woman won asylum based on years of extreme
domestic violence she was fleeing in
Guatemala. According to Cabrera, another
detainee recently won a family-based
petition. but that could not be confirmed.
A look back . . .
His whole family is here, but he may be sent
back
8.31.08: Suspected illegal immigrant waits
to see if he�s deported
Gallery: The Cabrera family in crisis
8.31.08: Hispanics deplore climate of fear
Video: Others speak out on the impact of the
illegal-immigrant crackdown on Rhode
Island's communities
8.31.08: Cases proceeding against suspected
illegal immigrants
9.01.08: Carcieri finds immigration an issue
that people are talking about
7.16.08: Dozens arrested in raids at R.I.
courthouses
East Providence lawyer Roberto Gonzalez
cited Cabrera’s medical condition, the
emotional and economic stresss on the family
since Cabrera’s arrest on a civil
immigration violation on July 15, 2008, and
the threatened disruption of the family if
he were forced to leave.
Cabrera suffered a near-fatal diabetic coma
last year. He also said his family has also
been in financial free-fall.
“We were looking at the potential of a
family that was going to be torn apart,”
Gonzalez said, “a man with a medical
condition who would not be able to
adequately treat it in his home country. He
was going to be sent to live in a country he
hasn’t seen in 25 years,” and where ageism
and illness would probably prevent him from
finding work.
After a brief trial during which the
government offered no contest, Cramer told
Cabrera, “Congratulations, sir.”
When Cabrera thanked the judge on behalf of
his family, Cramer said, “Don’t forget to
thank your attorney.” Cabrera replied,
“Right now, I’m not even able to speak.”
Afterward, Cabrera, his wife, Elena Marin,
and their daughter Melissa, a freshman at
Classical High School in Providence,
expressed relief.
“Now, I am going to go home and have a good,
deep sleep,” Cabrera said. “I haven’t been
able to sleep.”
He said he wants, and needs, to find a job.
He said after his daughter Cindy’s
scholarship was unexpectedly cut in half at
the University of Rhode Island, “They didn’t
cover all the expenses, so we’re worried
about making up the difference. I had to
stop injecting insulin. I don’t have the
money [to pay for it],” so his insulin
levels are dangerously high. He said friends
and strangers alike have helped the family
stay afloat. One of Melissa’s teachers has
sent money every month.
Asked if he planned to become a citizen,
Cabrera replied, “Como se dice en America
[as they say in America] – ‘Of course.’ ”
MARY GIOVAGNOLI, director of the Immigration
Policy Center, a research arm of the
American Immigration Lawyers Association,
said that the NACARA Act applies to a “very,
very tiny group of people” of roughly
500,000 across the country. “Altogether,
about 200,000 of those cases have been filed
since the program opened for business,”
Giovagnoli said. Though the grant rate “is
extremely high” within that pool, she said
it nonetheless represents “a very small
piece of the [immigration] puzzle.”
Hardship petitions under the NACARA Act
“essentially applied to a small category of
people who came to the U.S. as part of civil
wars in Guatemala and El Salvador,” she
said. [Qualifying Soviet bloc petitioners
generally filed for political asylum]. “Most
of the folks who are here illegally today,
the 11 to 12 million we talk about, they
have no shot at a program like this.”
Gonzalez, the lawyer who represented
Cabrera, said he discovered both that
Cabrera’s wife had won permanent residency
through NACARA, and that Cabrera had once
applied for asylum within the eligible time
period. Based on that, Gonzalez pursued
relief for Cabrera under the NACARA Act.
CABRERA told The Journal last year that he
left Guatemala in 1984 for political and
economic reasons, and crossed the border in
a car trunk stuffed with four other men.
“That was the worst time in my country,
because of the civil war,” he told the judge
yesterday. “There were kidnappings, and no
work, so it was bad, really bad.”
In Rhode Island, he worked menial jobs:
packing fish, butchering chickens, sorting
recyclables at the landfill; and shaking
vermin out of industrial laundry.
In February of 2007, he got a janitor job
through a friend who worked for Falcon
Maintenance, LLC, a former Johnston
employment agency. He kept his job after
Falcon’s state contract ran out that
December and TriState Enterprises of North
Providence took over. The companies
previously held contracts to clean more than
four dozen state buildings, including the
courthouses. (Falcon’s owner, Vincent D’Elia,
later served six months in a half-way house
for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants).
Cabrera scrubbed toilets and mopped floors
in the holding cells at the J. Joseph
Garrahy Judicial Complex in downtown
Providence until his arrest. He was charged
with a civil violation of being in the
country illegally, fitted with an electronic
ankle bracelet and sent home with the
knowledge he might be deported.
He waited, while the cases began dragging
through the backlogged U.S. immigration
courts. Of the 31 detainees, 3 agreed to
return to Mexico voluntarily in January, and
15 are believed to have cases pending.
Four were charged criminally for identity
theft and/or document fraud; of those, 3
were deported and a fugitive warrant was
issued for the fourth.
After the judge granted his petition
yesterday, Cabrera walked out into the
hallway, wiped his hand across his forehead
and said, “Phew.”
Outside the courthouse, he began calling
friends and family with his good news.
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