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Reid's phone call to Ridge spurs LV sisters release from fed custody

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  • Reid's phone call to Ridge spurs LV sisters release from fed custody

    Las Vegas Sun
    Jan 28 2005


    Reid's phone call to Ridge spurs LV sisters' release from federal
    custody

    By Timothy Pratt
    <[email protected]>
    LAS VEGAS SUN

    The Las Vegas teens who have spent the last two weeks detained in Los
    Angeles pending deportation to Armenia were scheduled to arrive at
    McCarran International Airport this morning.

    Last night 18-year-old Emma Sarkisian and her 17-year-old sister,
    Mariam, were told they would be freed and got the word back to their
    family and lawyers.

    Family, friends and strangers who rallied behind the family are
    expected to be celebrating their return into the evening. This
    morning, the girls' Russian-speaking father, Rouben Sarkisian, who
    runs Tropicana Pizza in Henderson, said through an interpreter that
    today it will be "free pizza for everybody!"

    Then he laughed and admitted he doesn't know exactly how he and his
    daughters will celebrate their reunion after the emotional roller
    coaster of the last two weeks.

    "I will see how they feel and what they want to do," he said. He
    added that he understood many residents of the Las Vegas Valley might
    want to greet the sisters -- whose photos and stories have been in
    the media nonstop since their Jan. 14 detention -- so he would
    probably bring them by the pizzeria this afternoon.

    Their freedom had been won, said one of their lawyers, Jeremiah Wolf
    Stuchiner, "apparently due to the intervention of (Secretary of
    Homeland Security) Tom Ridge," whom Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., had
    asked in a phone call Wednesday to give the case "personal
    attention."

    That sort of phone call has rarely, if ever, occurred to stop an
    order of deportation, which is "like a death sentence" in its legal
    finality, said Stuchiner, who has worked on immigration issues for
    nearly 50 years, first as a federal official and then as a lawyer.

    Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
    said "a collective decision had been reached ... to use our
    discretionary authority and grant a deferred action on the case."
    That means the sisters still have no legal status and will have their
    case reviewed on an ongoing basis, she said.

    Several immigration experts said the case drew attention to a larger
    problem, with thousands of children facing deportation because of the
    actions of their parents.

    Jeanne Butterfield, executive director for the American Immigration
    Lawyers Association, a Washington-based group that has 9,000 members
    nationwide, said "the case illustrates that we need changes in our
    law -- especially for minors who are having trouble with their legal
    status through no fault of their own."

    But Thursday night at Tropicana Pizza the mood was giddy.

    The restaurant had been ground zero for the growing public campaign
    in support of the girls in recent weeks. Their framed photos sat on
    the counter, behind two sheets of paper with phone numbers for
    members of Congress and immigration officials.

    Michelle Sarkisian, 13, stood outside the pizzeria around 8:45 p.m.,
    exchanging text messages via cell phone with Mariam.

    Though the scene was typical American tech, the pizzeria in a mall,
    the surrounding suburbs, it arose from a labyrinth of immigration
    law, international diplomacy and Capitol Hill maneuvers.

    Mariam was hiding in the federal holding tank's shower and using the
    cell phone that had been forbidden to her to tell her sister she was
    due to be freed.

    "We're coming home tomorrow!" Mariam wrote.

    The case had turned on a series of events stretching back more than a
    decade. Rouben Sarkisian arrived in the United States in 1991 and had
    three more daughters with his wife, Anoush. He then divorced his
    wife, married a U.S. citizen, and through that marriage gained the
    status of legal resident -- the step below citizenship. He later
    divorced the U.S. woman.

    But Sarkisian never gained any legal status for his oldest daughters,
    though he has said on several occasions that he thought he had. He
    even took them to a Las Vegas immigration office in July to obtain
    the paperwork he thought would show their status, in order to obtain
    a driver's license for Emma.

    That visit set in motion the steps that led to the Jan. 14 detention
    of the girls. Immigration officials said they had been ordered
    deported in 1993 and were just following the law.

    The Sarkisians' lawyers argued that the government should give Rouben
    a few months to finally become a citizen, which would then give him
    the right to petition for his daughters to become legal residents.

    Now that they are being released, the lawyers will withdraw their
    writ of habeas corpus still before Magistrate Judge Robert Johnston
    at the George Federal Building, since "the purpose of the habeas was
    to stop detention and have them released," Stuchiner said.

    Rouben Sarkisian said Thursday's events, as well as the two weeks
    before, had been "like life -- one time up, one time down."

    That up and down included placing an advertisement in recent days to
    sell the pizzeria, since he thought he would need money "to fight to
    keep my daughters here."

    Thursday night, he didn't know whether he would still try to sell the
    business. "The girls have worked hard in the pizzeria and ... and
    being together is what drives the business," he said.

    Rouben said it was hard to focus on the future for now. He reviewed
    the day's events, which began at 9 a.m. when he had attended a
    hearing at the George Federal Building and was told the girls would
    not be released to his custody while Johnston decided in the coming
    weeks whether they would be deported.

    "I thought it was over," he said. Then the sisters themselves were
    told they would be freed in the afternoon, news that eventually got
    back to Las Vegas only because a member of their legal team, lawyer
    Troy Baker, called them to brief them on the results of the hearing.

    Baker had been given a phone number to reach the teens in their
    detention cell because Johnston had ordered the federal government to
    give lawyers access to the girls.

    "I called them about 6 p.m. to tell them where we were going from
    here, after their release had been denied," Baker said.

    "But while I was on the phone, someone told them they would be set
    free. I told them, 'Don't start jumping up and down until I confirm
    this.' "

    Baker said the girls had been told several times in recent days that
    they had lost the legal battle and would be sent back to Armenia,
    even though no decision had been made. The girls were born in Armenia
    but don't speak its language and have no family there, the Sarkisians
    have said.

    Baker said he didn't want them to be given incorrect information
    again.

    Stuchiner, who Baker said has an impressive "black book," made a few
    phone calls Thursday night and confirmed the news about the release.

    The Sarkisian case had already brought surprises, including twice
    turning the sisters back from flights to Moscow within hours of
    take-off -- once due to an administrative order and once due to a
    judge's order.

    A retired Armenian archbishop in Los Angeles whose diocese has an
    estimated 600,000 followers had also been lobbying Armenian and U.S.
    authorities to let the girls go. And -- in what the lawyers said was
    the key to the release -- dozens of local residents let their
    congressmen know they thought the sisters should be with their
    family.

    Rouben said Thursday night that he did not blame anybody and was not
    bitter about what his family had been through in recent weeks.

    "I think everybody tried to do what they were supposed to do," he
    said.

    "And in the end, common sense and good people -- they prevail in
    America."
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