Deportee Wins Right to Return to Family in L.A.

After enduring a traumatic deportation and a six-month separation from his wife and baby daughter, Luis Gabriel Gurrea is home. On Saturday night, he walked back into their arms.

The ordeal began before dawn on Sept. 15. As Gurrea and his wife, Mireya, slept in their bed, immigration officers stormed their Van Nuys home, grabbed Gurrea, handcuffed and arrested him. Within 48 hours, he was deported to his native Argentina for failing to file residency documents on time.

Mireya Gurrea, a victim of a serial rapist in 1996, believed her life was destroyed and she would be left to raise their daughter alone.

But after intense lobbying by his wife, help from an attorney, pressure from U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s office and with the compassion of the Argentine consulate, Gurrea was granted permission to reenter the country.

The reunion took place minutes before 11 p.m. Saturday at Los Angeles International Airport, with a throng of family and friends anxiously awaiting Gurrea’s return.

Though his plane had landed at 8:45 p.m., his interview with immigration officials lasted nearly two hours, and anxiety grew as family members feared he had been detained. When he finally appeared, he grabbed Mireya and baby Megan, tears welled in his eyes and the crowd applauded and shouted his name. Caught up in the moment, two immigration agents joined in and cheered.

“It was a long six months,” Gurrea said, trembling with emotion. “I saw Mireya and I felt happy and nervous, like I’m about to start a new life.”

Under 1996 immigration laws that expanded grounds for deportation, Gurrea became tangled in a bureaucratic snare. The 37-year-old office manager entered the country legally in 1988, but on the mistaken advice of an attorney, he remained in the U.S. on an expired visa. When immigration agents discovered he was living here illegally, they deported him and barred him from entering the country for 10 years.

Mireya, a U.S. citizen, appealed the deportation immediately, first by filing a petition that proved the marriage was legitimate. Then she filed another petition that allowed for reentry after deportation.

In addition, she needed a waiver from the Argentine consulate that verified a 10-year separation would cause her to suffer extreme hardship.

In November, she flew to Argentina with her baby and pleaded her case. She explained that based on her financial situation and still fragile emotional state after the rape, she needed her husband back. The consulate agreed.

“I wanted to make sure they were going to remember me and not treat me like just another case,” she said.

In the United States, pressure from attorney Roger Gleckman and Boxer’s office hurried the process, which normally takes at least a year.

Gurrea’s case attracted attention from Spanish-language media, which used the case to illustrate how INS raids can divide families. Advocates contended the case showed the destructive effects that laws have had on the lives of legal entrants who had no criminal records but simply misunderstood the new process.

Mireya Gurrea said the experience serves as a warning to immigrants seeking legal advice from those with little knowledge of immigration law. She also urged newcomers to educate themselves about the their rights within the system.

“People are so afraid and they don’t know they have a right to appeal,” she said. “I think this shows if you present your case and fight, you can win.”