Santa Ana : Pair Fear Deportation Would Be Death Sentence

While many illegal aliens face poverty when deported to their homelands, Rolando and Gloria Campos say they could suffer a far worse fate if deported to El Salvador.

The couple, who have lived in Santa Ana since arriving here illegally in 1979, both fear that they will be murdered by right-wing death squads if they are sent back to El Salvador after a deportation hearing in Los Angeles next month.

In an effort to block deportation and generate sympathy for their cause, about 75 persons rallied in front of the Immigration and Naturalization Service office Tuesday afternoon in Santa Ana.

Speaking through a translator, Rolando Campos said, “The most certain thing is that they will kill us if we have to go back to El Salvador.”

While living in Berlin, a town in eastern El Salvador, Rolando Campos was a student activist and political organizer. Much of the time he helped organize clandestine meetings and worked as a poll watcher, but as the political situation in El Salvador worsened, he said, his life became endangered.

Fleeing the country, Campos entered the United States illegally in late 1979 and was arrested in Santa Ana by immigration agents in October, 1982. Gloria Campos arrived in the United States three months later and was caught by INS agents in Los Angeles.

Because the couple’s arrests were made inside the United States, they were eligible to apply for deportation hearings. “Rolando knew he wanted to apply for political asylum,” said Ted McCabe, the couple’s lawyer. “But the backlog is such that he has had to wait five years.”