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Siblings stuck in legal limbo

Family's first lawyer may have been a fraud, bungled case

Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 19, 2006 at midnight

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On Monday morning, Alicia Figueroa found herself in the middle of an almost overwhelming scene.

There were TV cameras and lights and reporters. There was a U.S. congresswoman with her bustling staff. And then, there were her children.

For two weeks, Figueroa had been in, as she described it, a state of shock. Although she is a legal permanent resident of the United States, her four youngest children had been ordered deported.

The four siblings, ages 16 to 22, were approved last year to become legal residents, but the wait to get the paperwork is more than six years. Without the visas in hand, the siblings faced deportation to Mexico.

That's when U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, stepped in, saying the children of legal U.S. residents should not be deported, especially the week before Christmas.

Immigration authorities relented and met with the family Monday to officially put the siblings on supervision - essentially leaving them in limbo until at least mid-January. By then, DeGette said, she hopes to have found a way to allow them to stay in the U.S. until their green cards are ready.

DeGette had just finished explaining to a bevy of cameras and reporters why all this was evidence of the need for "comprehensive immigration reform," when Figueroa finally stood alone with her children.

Then the tears came.

"I'm just so happy," she said, the joy welling up and spilling out her eyes.

Blanca Figueroa wiped away her mother's tears.

Now the 21-year-old college student could think about her own dreams again.

"It's not like I'm going to get my papers and do nothing," said Blanca, who's studying to become a social worker to neglected children. "I'm looking to actually make a difference, to be useful."

The Figueroas' attorney, Juliet Gilbert, said she hopes DeGette can help persuade a law enforcement agency to investigate the person Gilbert believes landed the family in immigration court in the first place. When the family decided in 1998 to seek legal status in the U.S., a woman posing as a lawyer wrongly told the family to apply for political asylum, for which they were not eligible.

If an investigation is launched, Gilbert said, the family could apply for an S-1 visa, available to victims of fraud who can help the government with their testimony.

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