Death by deportation / Remembering Edgar Chocoy

[struggle4progress]

Remembering Edgar Chocoy
Play serves as a reminder of the sometimes fatal flaws in the U.S. immigration system
By Greg Campbell
[e-mail]
1:05 a.m. MT Mar 27, 2008

Four years ago this Thursday, a 16-year-old boy was gunned down in the streets of Villanueva, Guatemala, by members of a notoriously violent gang from which he tried heroically to free himself. The regularity with which such murders occurred in places like Villanueva made the death of Edgar Chocoy at the tattooed hands of Mara Salvatrucha wholly unremarkable ...

What happened was that Chocoy seemed doomed from the start. Born into a poor family on the outskirts of Guatemala City, he was abandoned by his mother when he was six months old and left in the care of his grandfather, who sold drugs for a living. He’d only met his father once and didn’t step foot into a school until he was 9 or 10 years old. It was natural that his only sense of family came from the kids he met on the street. All of them were members of Mara Salvatrucha, and at age 12, so was he.

Although he wore the baggy pants, the tight white T-shirts and the tattoos that aligned him with MS, Chocoy wasn’t cut out for life as a gangster. He hung out less and less with the street thugs, preferring to play with friends in another neighborhood who weren’t involved in gang life. Finally, he was threatened with death if he didn’t pay the gang an amount equal to $375.

For Edgar, the price on his head may as well have been $1 million; he went into hiding at an aunt’s house until she feared for her life as well. Using money sent by his mother—who was living in L.A.—he bused through Mexico and entered the United States illegally, fleeing MS and trying to save his life ...

http://www.fortcollinsnow.com/article/20080327/NEWS/230019754

Death by deportation
By Greg Campbell
1:05 a.m. MT Mar 26, 2008

... In giving his verbal decision about Chocoy’s application for asylum, Judge Vandello recapped Chocoy’s case and considered a slew of supporting documents, including an affidavit from Bruce Harris, the director of Casa Alianza, a Central American children advocacy group, which said that sending Chocoy back to Guatemala would be a death sentence for him. Vandello read a psychological evaluation which concluded that Chocoy was depressed and suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. He read a letter from Santiago Sanchez, a counselor at Homeboy Industries, who said Chocoy has a lot of support and a suitable home with an aunt in Virginia who offered to raise him, an offer that was initially approved by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Another letter from a teacher at the San Luis Valley Youth Center said Chocoy was doing well in school and that "he has a positive attitude and ... has been a valuable asset to their program" ...

"He appears to have told his story honestly and directly," Vandello said. "I have no reason to doubt his credibility."

Nevertheless, Vandello denied the asylum application, effectively sentencing Chocoy to death ...

Chocoy was returned to Guatemala on March 10. On March 27, he was shot dead ...

http://www.fortcollinsnow.com/article/20080326/NEWS/291156901

[Judi Lynn]

1. How many people could live with this kind of constant struggle? And just a kid. Sad, sad, sad. n/t