Illegal alien’s saga ends in deportation

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1998 | 11:08 a.m.

A last-ditch effort to stop the deportation of an illegal alien whose American wife had pleaded for him failed Monday morning, and the native of India was taken into custody.

Genie Goel, 46, whose mother died of liver disease on Nov. 8 and whose father has terminal cancer, fought to control her emotions as Suresh Kumar Goel was taken away in handcuffs.

"I've lost my mother, my father is dying and now I'm losing my husband," she wept. "Right now, I'm not proud to be an American."

Suresh "Sam" Goel, 42, says he fled his native India in 1988 to escape political persecution, slipping into this country at Brownsville, Texas, and migrating to California.

In 1992, he applied for political asylum, and while that issue was under investigation, he was given temporary permission to stay in this country and work. That permission was revoked after a 1995 hearing in which a judge denied the request and issued a deportation order.

Goel did not turn himself into the INS in San Francisco as ordered, claiming his English was very poor at the time and he could not understand the proceedings.

According to Goel, a Hindu interpreter provided him at the hearing spoke a different dialect than he speaks, making it impossible to understand what was happening.

Goel says that is the reason he did not appeal the judge's decision on political asylum. He was expecting further direction from a lawyer or the INS, but he received nothing. So he went to Los Angeles to wait.

While waiting, he met Genie Collins. They fell in love, and after about three years of hearing nothing from the INS, they moved to Las Vegas and got married in July 1997.

Goel says he did not realize he was being sought by the agency for deportation.

The INS says that because Goel got married while he was under order of deportation, the marriage is irrelevant to his residency status.

The marriage has become a major issue in the long battle to make Goel a U.S. citizen.

Other issues raised and rejected by the INS include Genie Goel's health -- she says she is unable to work because of a weak heart and other medical problems -- and the fact that she just lost her mother and soon will lose her father.

The Goels were told that the immigration appeals court in Falls Church, Va., would consider their appeal, but not until Goel was taken into custody.

As soon as Goel was arrested Monday morning at the INS office in Las Vegas, Genie Goel called the appeals court.

"They were very cold and snobby," she said, a description she used of most INS officials she has encountered.

The only thing the appeals court's representative would tell her, she said, was that they would be in touch.

"When?" cried Genie Goel. "Today? Tomorrow? After Sam's in India?"

The Goels were hoping that INS officials at least would validate their marriage before sending him back to India. But after taking him into custody, the validation request was denied.

Had the marriage been validated, it might have been possible for Goel to return to this country within a few months.

Now the Goels fear it may take five or 10 years before they see each other again.

San Diego attorney Dario Aguirre, who represents the Goels, is doing everything he can to get the couple reunited.

Perhaps the last hope is that Goel can go to the U.S. consulate in India and plead his case to validate the marriage and ask the consulate to expedite the immigration process.

"We've done a pretty good job of documenting everything," Aguirre said.

But now, he says, it's a waiting game.

Genie Goel was desperate for information about what was happening to her husband after he was taken away Monday, but for security reasons, INS officials declined to tell her anything.

She said he was allowed to call her, but he did not know when he would be getting on the plane or when he might arrive in India.

"He was handcuffed and will be in shackles all the way," she said.