Wilson Bill Would Let DeBeer Seek Citizenship

An aide to U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) on Thursday said the senator will sponsor a special bill that would eventually make U.S. citizenship available to Joeri DeBeer, a Dutch youth who faces deportation for killing a man who DeBeer said had molested him for years.

The proposed legislation, called a “private” bill, was being drafted Thursday and probably will be introduced next week in the Senate, said Michele Patterson, a Wilson aide in San Francisco.

If passed, the bill would allow DeBeer permanent residency, which would allow him to seek citizenship in the United States after five years if he has lived here continuously, Patterson said.

Private bills are “very rare,” but DeBeer’s “unique and compelling” situation justified the proposed legislation, Patterson said.

Guardian Cried

Jenny Ward, DeBeer’s legal guardian in Northern California, said she cried when she heard about Wilson’s intentions.

“A client grabbed me and hugged me. Everybody told me no, that I wouldn’t be able to help Joeri. But this (fight) has been like riding a horse. You fall off but you put yourself right back on,” Ward said.

Although Wilson’s office has been aware of DeBeer’s deportation dilemma since October, the announcement came five days after Debeer’s plight was featured in a “60 Minutes” television segment Sunday.

But the DeBeer case already had received widespread publicity when all 12 jurors who found him guilty of manslaughter appeared at his sentencing last June 20 and asked for mercy for DeBeer.

From the beginning, Joeri (pronounced U-ree) DeBeer’s case has been complex.

DeBeer, 19, who was tried as an adult, was convicted May 21 of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Phillip Allen Parsons.

DeBeer, a native of the Netherlands, met Parsons in Saudi Arabia, where DeBeer’s mother had taken the boy after remarrying. Parsons offered to bring the boy, then 13, to the United States and promised to make a motorcycle racing champion of him and become his guardian. DeBeer’s family, unaware of Parsons’ prior convictions for child molesting, agreed.

During the trial, DeBeer testified that Parsons sexually molested him for years.

Described Killing

On April 9, 1985, according to DeBeer, as Parsons tried to molest and then choke DeBeer, the youth man shot him with a borrowed gun, took the body to Riverside County and set it afire with gasoline. Then he returned to their Dana Point apartment and set it on fire.

But at his sentencing, jurors said DeBeer had been a victim. Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald agreed and gave DeBeer probation.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, however, has been trying to deport DeBeer on the grounds that he allowed his visa to expire and that he committed what an INS official called a crime of “moral turpitude.”

At a November hearing, DeBeer lost a bid to remain in the United States but has appealed that decision to the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals.

Meanwhile, Judge Fitzgerald has recommended against deportation. DeBeer’s immigration attorney, John R. Alcorn of Irvine, said the judge’s recommendation “should absolutely prohibit” DeBeer’s deportation on the grounds of his conviction. Several immigration experts agreed that the appeals decision could go either way.

In five years, Wilson has written only four similar bills dealing with an alien’s immigration status.

“We only want to sponsor the bills we feel that could pass. We want to help Joeri,” Patterson said.

One of Wilson’s aides acknowledged that Wilson’s legal counsel, Ira Goldman, saw Sunday’s “60 Minutes” and said “this looks tailor-made for a special relief bill.”

The aide, Otto Bos in Wilson’s San Diego office, said, “Everyone had been looking at this problem from the wrong direction. We were trying to get an extension of DeBeer’s student visa.”

But that approach would only have allowed DeBeer to remain in the United States as long as he was a student.

“We didn’t want him to be an 86-year-old man attending college,” Patterson said.