NY immigrant advocate, tortured during Chile’s dictatorship, faces deportation in asylum bid

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

NY immigrant advocate, tortured during Chile’s dictatorship, faces deportation in asylum bid
By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, July 14, 2:39 AM

NEW YORK — Victor Toro rarely passes unnoticed as he ambles down the busy streets of the south Bronx, wearing a red bandana over his white beard and ponytail. People who have seen him in the newspaper and on TV call out to him by name. After three decades as an immigrants’ rights activist in New York, feeding the poor in soup kitchens and fighting to keep kids off drugs, this native Chilean is one of them.

But Toro’s days could be numbered in the tumultuous New York borough, where he has planted so many roots as founder of the La Pena community center.

A deportation order hangs over the former leftist guerrilla, who co-founded Chile’s Revolutionary Leftist Movement in the 1960s and was later tortured and exiled by agents of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

After stops in Europe, Cuba and Nicaragua, Toro entered the United States illegally in 1984 from Mexico, where he feared that Pinochet’s spies were closing in on him. But despite being married to a native Chilean who has U.S. citizenship, having a daughter and granddaughter who also live legally in the United States, Toro never tried to get legal residency.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ny-immigrant-advocate-tortured-during-chiles-dictatorship-faces-deportation-in-asylum-bid/2011/07/14/gIQAR87eDI_story.html?wprss=rss_national

[Ken Burch]

1. It's disturbing that the Chilean hard right still has enough influence in that country

That this man would feel he needs to stay here in exile even now.

Still, if he does, we should respect his wishes and fight for his right to stay.

It's fascist to do the "the law is the law" thing on immigration anyway...the sanctity of "the law" is never more important than simply helping people stay alive.

[Igel]

6. He feels it's dangerous.

Feelings aren't always a good reflection of reality. In fact, they're often rather unreal.

Compound this with he's "feeling about" the state in a country 2000 miles away. That makes his feelings rather incompletely informed.

Pitch in that there's not much for him to return to. Making him feel less than charitable towards the idea of returning.

Add in that his friends/family/life are in this country where he's a minor celebrity in some circles. Which, of course, would make him feel that staying here is a good thing.

And by all means, let's include that he has no legal standing, at this point, to apply for a green card or citizenship without a lengthy waiting period--one possibly that he won't survive. So in a sufficiently emotional sense returning him to Chile would be a kind of death sentence.

The man was a fool, probably he didn't try to regularize his status either by means of an asylum application soon after arriving or by taking advantage of one of the amnesty "rounds" in the 1990s. I feel he probably assumed he'd be deported by the fascist Allende-killers in office, either Nixon or Clinton (like there's a difference from a sufficiently one-sided vantage point), or possibly just disappeared by the US government on a black helicopter using zero-point energy. After all, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're really not out to ignore you.

Then again, them's just my feelings on the matter.

[Ken Burch]

7. Nice dismissive cynicism there.

That was the sort of post that could ONLY be written by an upper-class white person who has no knowledge of what it's like to live under a fascist regime. You post from a vantage point of smugness, comfort and safety.

The truth is, even if he didn't go through the bourgeois niceties of immigration law, this guy should be cut a break. This country should PROTECT people who fought against fascism. Opposing fascism is, after all, what this country is supposed to be about.

You're taking a "the law is the law" position, a viewpoint that always leads to purely right-wing outcomes, since the law never serves the people.

[Lance_Boyle]

2. He had a legit asylum petition decades ago and should have pursued it then.

I guess now the courts will decide if it's still legit. He really dropped the ball. But if there is still a real threat to his life in Chile, asylum should still be an option. If not, no do-overs for dropped balls.

[MountainLaurel]

4. Perhaps it saved his life

Let's not forget that Pinochet's activities occurred with the approval and perhaps direct assistance of the United States. (Another one we can thank Kissinger for.) Bringing himself out in the open to the U.S. government would have likely gotten him a one-way trip to Santiago and a death sentence.

[Lance_Boyle]

5. Not if he had been exiled from Chile by the powers he feared.

Had Chile sought his extradition back to Chile, it is possible a Ford, Reagan or Bush would have done so. But Chile exiled him - they were not trying to get him back.

[WatsonT]

3. Why didn't he try to get residency status?

Seems a foolish decision on his part.

[Ken Burch]

8. He may have feared being deported on sight if he got anywhere near

the immigration offices.

In any case, this guy has earned a pass on the bullshit immigration niceties. If you fought against fascism, that should automatically earn you American citizenship.

[WatsonT]

9. He was given leniency to come here because of that

not making it legitimate after decades was his choice.