http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4380018.html

The Houston Chronicle

Senator's wife faces order to leave U.S.

Dec. 5, 2006, 7:41AM

By DANIEL YEE Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

ATLANTA — The Colombia-born wife of a Georgia state senator emerged from hiding and turned herself in Tuesday to face a deportation order.

Sascha Herrera, 28, arrived at the Martin Luther King Federal Building shortly before 8 a.m. to face authorities in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office.

"I'm very nervous right now," Herrera said. "I think I'm doing the right thing. I hope my name and my husband's name is clean."

Her husband, State Sen. Curt Thompson said, "The main goal is to make sure after the interview that they will allow Sascha to go home."

She had been in hiding since Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrived at her home Nov. 28 with an order to remove her from the U.S. She was not home at the time.

Her attorney, Charles Kuck, claims she was duped by a man handling her immigration requests and that she never received the immigration notices that triggered her deportation order.

Kuck filed a petition Monday to stay her deportation order and reopen her case, arguing that a man filed an asylum petition on her behalf without her knowledge and before her husband sponsored her green card application based on their April marriage.

The deportation order stems from Herrera's repeated failure to appear before a judge on the asylum application, which Kuck said she did not know had been filed.

The case hinges on whether Herrera received a notice to appear in court, and whether the asylum application could have been filed without her knowledge, said Victor Cerda, former general counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Thompson, a Democrat and attorney, has been a strong advocate of immigration rights.

According to Kuck, Herrera came to the U.S. _ where her parents have been living _ on a visitor visa in 2003. She applied for an extension to the visa through a "notario" _ a man who claimed he was qualified to handle legal immigration matters _ but did not get it until 20 days before the extension was due to expire.

The notario then suggested an asylum application, which Herrera signed, but she got a "bad vibe" from the man and decided not to proceed, Kuck said.

Later in 2004, she was accepted as a student at Kennesaw State University, which got a student visa for her. She then told the notario she did not want anything to do with him.

She met Thompson last year and they got married in April, when he applied for her to become a permanent resident.

But in the meantime, the notario filed the asylum application, listing his address as hers.

Cerda said the deportation order in the asylum case would trump any pending green card application and trigger mandatory detention.

Her decision to hide could hurt her request for a judge's stay on deportation, Cerda said. Now that she has turned herself in, she could remain in the U.S. while her petition is pending, either in jail or released on bond.

Of all the illegal bricklayers, housekeepers, ect. in this country and they go full fledge after a Democrats Wife!

:mad: :mad: :mad:

this case makes no sense to me at all. if she is married to citizen I thought it was a mere formality to get a permanent card to stay ? Not to be a citizen but at least stay as with her husband. Something else is going on here ?