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  • A family's reprieve from fear

    Las Vegas Sun
    April 4 2009


    A family's reprieve from fear

    Mother who's seeking legal status freed from jail, but still could be deported

    By Timothy Pratt
    Sat, Apr 4, 2009 (2 a.m.)

    When Emma Sarkisian heard her mother's voice tight with panic in a
    call from the North Las Vegas jail last week, she flashed back to her
    own calls from a different jail four years ago.

    She too was told to pack her bags, along with her younger sister,
    Mariam, apparently to board a plane for Armenia, a country that didn't
    even exist when Emma was born in 1986. She also called her family in
    fear. In the end, both sisters were saved from deportation by a highly
    unusual, last-minute phone call from Sen. Harry Reid to the secretary
    of Homeland Security.

    But Emma hadn't heard of any such drama this time; her mother, Anoush,
    was on the other end of the line saying she was being taken
    somewhere. Could it be a waiting plane?

    Within a couple of hours, the two were wetting each other's cheeks
    with tears of relief, locked in embrace on the sidewalk in front of
    the Las Vegas Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

    After the mother of five had spent nearly two months in jail,
    including being chained to a hospital bed for four days, the federal
    government set her free March 26 under an `order of supervision,'
    according to her attorney, Arsen V. Baziyants.

    An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman would not comment
    on the case, other than to say that Anoush, like Emma and Mariam, must
    report for regularly scheduled visits to Las Vegas immigration
    officials ' and that the agency would continue to seek to deport the
    woman, who lacks travel documents.

    The events again draw the Sarkisian family into the news, offering an
    example of the situation facing an estimated 2 million families in the
    United States.

    Some members of those families were born here ' as were three of the
    Sarkisian sisters, Patricia, 15; Elizabeth, 16; and Michelle,
    17. Others become citizens over time, as did Rouben Sarkisian, the
    father of the girls, divorced from Anoush since 1999 but still in
    contact with his daughters. Some remain in limbo, such as Emma, now
    22, and her sister Mariam, 21, who wait while Rouben's application for
    their citizenship winds its way through the system. Still others find
    no legal recourse; the only thing keeping them from being deported is
    that the federal government can't find them.

    With an increased emphasis on enforcement, both at workplaces and in
    neighborhoods, more of those people, like Anoush Sarkisian, are being
    found and deported. As a result, more families are split apart.

    Those who advocate fixing the immigration system by offering pathways
    to legalization for millions, along with increased border security,
    are increasingly pointing to the effect of deportations on millions of
    U.S.-born children. They say communities across the United States are
    better served by keeping families together.

    Federal officials got to the Sarkisian family this time after
    discovering that Anoush was giving a deposition in an auto accident
    lawsuit. On Feb. 2, outside a law office, several Immigration and
    Customs Enforcement agents ordered Sarkisian out of her car and into
    handcuffs, in front of Emma, who looked on, stunned.

    Emma and Mariam had been detained in a similar fashion four years
    earlier, teenage workers in their father's suburban strip mall
    pizzeria suddenly catapulted into the glare of national media
    attention.

    Their story began years earlier, however. Rouben Sarkisian had come to
    the United States with Anoush in the early 1990s. They had three
    daughters together. He divorced Anoush and remarried a U.S. citizen,
    entering a path to citizenship. Anoush sought political asylum from
    the U.S. government, a case that took nearly six years, finishing with
    her losing an appeal. The government ordered her deported in 1999. She
    stayed, unwilling to leave her daughters.

    Rouben shared the job of raising them. He thought the girls were due
    to become citizens, but ICE agents arrested them in January 2005 and
    sent them to a cell in Los Angeles.

    After several weeks of dramatic back-and-forth, Reid's call to the
    homeland security chief saved them. The federal government exercised
    its discretion to offer what's known as humanitarian relief. Rouben
    has finally become a U.S. citizen and petitioned for his older
    daughters to do the same. But that will take years, and until then,
    the daughters can't petition for their mother. Neither can Rouben,
    because they are divorced.

    The eldest of the U.S.-born daughters, Michelle, could petition for
    Anoush to become a citizen, but only after she turns 21 ' in four
    years.

    Baziyants, Anoush's attorney, is hoping to obtain legal status for her
    under an immigration law meant in part for people from former Soviet
    republics. He says attorneys incorrectly advised her more than a
    decade ago that she wasn't eligible for help under this law.

    For now, he says, the government made the correct decision releasing
    Anoush from jail, where she received inadequate medical attention for
    her diabetes, migraines and stomach disorders. A week before she was
    released, detention center officials took her to North Vista Hospital,
    where she remained chained to a bed for four days, refusing to sign
    papers consenting to an operation on her heart, he says. During that
    time, neither he or the family could obtain information regarding her
    whereabouts. Sarkisian's stay also included repeated attempts, some at
    3 a.m., to make her sign papers giving the Armenian government
    permission to grant her travel documents, the attorney says.

    Baziyants adds that the Senate majority leader's office also helped
    obtain Anoush's release. A spokesman for Reid wouldn't comment on the
    case, however.

    People following the story of the Sarkisians have said the federal
    government should deport Anoush just as all orders of deportation
    should be acted on.

    But Baziyants says the case is not cut and dry, and neither are many
    others. `The point isn't whether we should open the floodgates and let
    everyone into the country,' he said. `The point is, are the rules as
    they are now really balanced? Do they reflect who we are as a country?
    Do we tear apart all these families, or take a closer look?'

    Meanwhile, last Friday night at the Sarkisian house in Las Vegas,
    everyone ate kashlama for the first time in nearly two months; Anoush
    is the only one in the family who can prepare the Armenian
    meat-and-potatoes dish.

    Michelle, a senior at Palo Verde High, was relieved. While her mother
    was gone, she didn't sleep well and let her grades slip to C's.

    `There was so much stress,' she says. `The house was a depressing
    place. Now I can rest.'

    http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/apr/0 4/familys-reprieve-fear/
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