Judge Rules Students Can Stay in U.S.

In a dramatic reversal, an immigration judge ruled Thursday that four honors students who faced deportation after being detained by immigration agents while on a trip to a science competition could stay in the country.

The four came to court expecting to be deported in what was to be the final hearing in their three-year battle to remain in the U.S. But Judge John W. Richardson sided with their attorneys, who argued that the government’s evidence that they had been brought to the country illegally as young children was invalid because immigration authorities in Buffalo, N.Y., had violated the students’ rights.

“I thought I was really gone,” a stunned Luis Nava, 21, told reporters after the decision. “It was a real surprise.”

“It’s a big victory,” said Judy Flanagan, one of the group’s lawyers. “We were looking at the prospect of the students having to leave.”

The Phoenix office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it was reserving its right to appeal the ruling.

Rick Oltman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports tighter restrictions on immigration, said that if the students’ rights were violated, the ruling should stand. “We support the law,” he said.

But he said there would be additional cases like this one as children of illegal immigrants grew up.

“Clearly, something needs to be determined here so we can either remove the impediments to deportation or allow the people who’ve been here to adjust their status,” Oltman said.

The case of the “Wilson Four,” named after their high school, has transfixed Phoenix for years. The students were members of an after-school workshop on solar energy when they traveled to Buffalo for a national competition on building and racing a solar-powered boat.

In their testimony, the four described how their teachers took them to Niagara Falls, where immigration agents became suspicious because the students were Latino, and held them for nine hours without letting them contact attorneys. The agents approached some of the students and after determining that one was in the country illegally, demanded that their teachers bring the rest in for interrogation.

Yuliana Huicochea, now 20, testified that while waiting in the immigration office in 2002, a supervisor told her that she and her classmates stood out. “In Arizona, everyone’s Hispanic; no one would question your status,” she quoted the official as telling her. “But here in Buffalo, someone was going to ask questions.”

The students’ principal testified that immigration officers in Buffalo demanded that the high school fax the students’ birth certificates immediately or they would deport the youths to Mexico that night.

“It’s outrageous kids are treated this way,” Flanagan said. “They were on a school field trip.”

Unless the government appeals and is successful, the four will be able to stay in the U.S. Nava, Huicochea and the other two, Jaime Damian and Oscar Corona, both 20, said they wanted to become U.S. citizens.

Meanwhile, Damian revealed to reporters that his longtime girlfriend was pregnant with twins. Now, he said, he will be able to see them born.