No redemption: INS laws may separate man from his family

By Timothy Pratt

Monday, June 9, 2003 | 11:08 a.m.

Five-year-old Gianni Bohorquez almost lost his life in a late March house fire in east Las Vegas. He was saved when his next-door neighbors broke through a locked door and pulled him out of thickening smoke.

The boy's rescue and surprisingly quick recovery gave Gianni a second chance.

Now his father, Leonel Magana Sandoval, is hoping for a similar redemption after landing in jail while trying to renew his immigration papers days after the boy's return from the hospital. Because of a drug conviction in 1996, he faces deportation, and an immigration attorney says his chances of staying with his family do not look good.

The story, said Yamileth Bohorquez, Gianni's mother, is one of how the past can haunt you. It is also a story of how paying your debt to society may mean one thing when it comes to state law and another when it comes to immigration law. And it also shows how changes to immigration law passed by Congress in 1997 leave some people with no way to be redeemed in the eyes of society, an immigration expert said.

Bohorquez thought the future would give her another chance, after the family of four kept rebounding so well from the fire.

Her insurance gave her a shot at rebuilding the house burned to the ground after Gianni was playing with matches.

And although doctors forecast a hospital stay of six months or more, Gianni came home after five weeks, wrestling over a beach ball on a recent afternoon with his 2-year-old sister, also named Yamileth.

In addition, although Bohorquez had been switched to a new position at Paris Las Vegas the night before the fire, her good standing after seven years with the company helped her gain as much time off as she needed while caring for Gianni, whose body was burned from the waist up.

But then Magana walked through the doors of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services to renew his green card on a recent afternoon. A U.S. resident -- the step before becoming a citizen -- his card had expired after a decade.

He never walked out.

Ignorant of how an arrest for drug trafficking in 1996 would be seen by immigration authorities, he was immediately detained and will likely be deported, authorities said. He will appear in court on the case June 16.

Bohorquez said she doesn't understand why her husband is now in jail if he was tried for the crime, had his original sentence suspended, received honorable discharge from probation, and turned his life around to become a supervisor in a plumbing company, a good father and a Christian.

Pastor Gabriel Ortiz, of the Victory Outreach Church, said he has witnessed that turnaround during the past six years.

His church helped Magana kick a drinking problem and steer clear of the law, he said.

"He is a man who is living well in society and has regenerated himself spiritually and in his home," Ortiz said in Spanish.

But an immigration attorney and former immigration official the family has consulted says the odds are against the family. Most likely, he says, Magana will soon be on a plane headed back to his homeland, Colombia, nearly 20 years after arriving on U.S. soil.

"Before 1997, there could have been a waiver invoked for this man based on his rehabilitation and the hardships being deported would pose for his family," said Las Vegas attorney Jeremiah Wolf Stuchiner, who worked for the Immigration and Naturalization Service for 22 years.

"But now there is no such thing as redemption in the law, and it is mandatory detention and deportation, no bail and no waiver," he said.

"(Bohorquez) can't see the fairness of it," the attorney said. "(She) assumes the government is the government and paying the crime for the state government should be the same for the federal government. But it's not.

"There's no way to pay for this crime when it comes to immigration. There's no way out, and that's the tragedy of it."

The only exception is if a member of Congress issues what is called a private bill allowing a person to remain in the country regardless of the crime he may have committed.

Meanwhile, after weeks without her father's company, Gianni's little sister listens by day for his car to pull into the driveway of the friend's house where the family is staying. And Gianni prays by night for his father's return.

Last month Gianni and his neighbor, Angel Landeros, one of the boy's rescuers, were reunited with the firefighters who came to their aid, but Landeros said it was a bittersweet celebration.

"You feel a little glad being on television and in the papers, but then with all this happening, you feel sad as well," he said in Spanish.

Landeros, who is a baker at the Fiesta, said he has known Magana for two years. His 14-year-old son David wrestled and played Nintendo with Gianni.

"They should give him a chance, a chance for his children to grow up," Landeros said. "If he goes, that family is finished."

Bohorquez said if her husband is deported, she would have to stay in Las Vegas to continue with Gianni's recovery, as well as to ensure her family a better future.

She said she is resigned to God's will, but has begun thinking about selling her house and car and moving into an apartment. Though her insurance covers 80 percent of Gianni's medical bills, those bills are already at a half-million dollars, Bohorquez said -- and she earns about $20,000 of the family's annual income of $50,000.

Gianni asked her why his father is in jail the other day, Bohorquez said.

"He said, 'My father has never killed anyone or stolen anything, has he?' "

"I said, 'No, it's just that he wasn't born here and doesn't have his papers in order, and that's what happens to people like that.' "