The lawyer for a Kona coffee farmer who was deported back to Mexico despite being called a “pillar of his community” by a U.S. judge plans to file an appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeals on the grounds that he was legitimately married to a U.S. citizen and should not have been deported.
The case of Andres Magana Ortiz, 43, drew widespread national attention after Judge Stephen Reinhardt with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a May 30 opinion: “President Trump has claimed that his immigration policies would target ‘bad hombres.’ The government’s decision to remove Magana Ortiz shows that even the ‘good hombres’ are not safe.”
Reinhardt said it was
“difficult to see how the
government’s decision to expel Magana Ortiz is consistent with the president’s promise of an immigration system with ‘a lot of heart.’”
Magana Ortiz, who came to the United States illegally from Mexico when he was 15, voluntarily left Hawaii on July 7, a day ahead of a deportation order the appeals court said it could not overturn. He has been living in a small town in central Mexico with a relative.
Honolulu attorney Jim Stanton said he plans to file an appeal either today or Wednesday challenging a previous ruling that Magana Ortiz hadn’t met the burden of proof showing his 2016 marriage to Brenda Cleveland-Reynolds, a U.S. citizen, was not for immigration purposes.
“We think we had enough evidence there to begin with,” Stanton said, adding that if the immigration appeals board rules against Magana Ortiz, he’ll appeal to the 9th Circuit.
Reinhardt said Magana Ortiz was “by all accounts a pillar of his community and a devoted father and husband” who built a house, started his own company and paid his taxes.
Although he apparently had two convictions for driving under the influence, the last one occurred 14 years ago, and “even the government conceded during the immigration proceedings that there was no question as to Magana Ortiz’s good moral character,” Reinhardt said.
His case spurred the social activism organization Brave New Films to put together a short film on Magana Ortiz’s plight that’s narrated by actor Martin Sheen. The 5-minute film is on YouTube at youtu.be/i5788ncAg5w.
“I read Judge Reinhardt’s very powerful statement — good hombres are not safe — and I felt moved by it. I felt upset by it, and I wanted to do something,” said Los Angeles-based filmmaker Robert Greenwald.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against Magana Ortiz in 2011, U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi said in a May 22 ruling. In 2014 he was allowed to remain with his family and pursue routes to legal status, but the government on March 21 ordered Magana Ortiz to report for removal. His stay was extended to July 8.
Kobayashi said that Magana Ortiz met Cleveland-Reynolds in 2012 and he began living with her in 2015. The couple married on Jan. 16, 2016. Magana Ortiz has three children 12, 14 and 21 from a previous marriage. All are American citizens.
On March 29, 2016, Cleveland-Reynolds filed an I-130 “relative petition for alien relative” as a spouse, according to court records. In her ruling, Kobayashi said that even if Magana Ortiz was removed from the country, Cleveland-Reynolds would still be able to submit documentation further supporting the legitimacy of the marriage as the petition was considered.
Magana Ortiz’s oldest daughter, Victoria Magana Ledesma, turned 21 on Monday, making her eligible to file her own I-130 petition, which she said she will do.
Illegal aliens who stay in the country more than a year accrue “unlawful presence” and are subject to a 10-year bar on their return to the United States. But if Cleveland-Reynolds’ I-130 petition is granted, Magana Ortiz would be able to seek a waiver to enable him to return sooner.
Stanton said “it’s going to take at least a year to work this thing through the system.”
In the meantime, Magana Ortiz is living with an aunt in the small town two hours from Morelia, Mexico, that he gave up 28 years ago for a better life in the United States.
On Hawaii island, Magana Ortiz leased about 20 acres and helped run 15 other small coffee farms. Magana Ledesma, his daughter, said in a phone interview Monday that her father is staying busy fixing up a relative’s house in Mexico.
“My dad is a really strong person, so it is hard for him, especially being away from his kids, I think, and also his business,” the University of Hawaii at Hilo student said. “He has workers he has left to deal with different things … but it’s gotten frustrating for him because he doesn’t have control anymore and he doesn’t know what’s going on. He feels like all that he’s worked for is falling apart.”
With the I-130 petitions and the possibility of a bill that Congress could pass to aid Magana Ortiz, there is hope, Magana Ledesma said. “We have a couple options and we’re hoping that a least one of them pulls through,” she said.
