Illegal Aliens’ Pursuit of Snow Ends Up in a Legal Limbo

Up from Miami to catch their first glimpse of snow, the Fajardo family took a brief detour over the Rainbow Bridge here a few weeks ago and entered into a strange void from which they may never return--the Twilight Zone of American immigration law.

Although all four of the Cuban immigrants are technically illegal aliens, they had been allowed to stay and even work in the United States because the Castro government would not take them back.

But, U.S. immigration officials contend, the Fajardos effectively deported themselves on Dec. 23, when, on vacation at Niagara Falls, they took a 20-minute excursion across the loosely watched border to get a better view from the Canadian side. When they tried to cross back from Ontario, they were stopped at the American border.

‘I Made a Mistake’

“So many years I fight to get to the United States, and to lose it in 20 minutes,” Carlos Fajardo, 39, said glumly in Spanish. “I know that I made a mistake. I didn’t pay attention to what I was doing. But I would like to appeal to the kindness and charity of the people of the United States to let me back.”

Struck by the plight of the hard-luck sightseers, Florida Sen. Bob Graham has urged the Immigration and Naturalization Service to show compassion.

Meanwhile, reporters from around the world have flocked to the tiny motel room here where Fajardo, his 33-year-old bride of two months, Bermaida, and her two children by a previous marriage have been living for the last three weeks, trying to extricate themselves from legal limbo and return to their home, relatives, work and school in Miami.

Canadian officials have granted them temporary authority to stay until Monday, but, after that, their status in this country also becomes murky.

Used Fake Passports

So far, INS officials have been unimpressed by all the attention and appeals. Benedict J. Ferro, the director of the agency’s Buffalo district office, said records show that Fajardo slipped into the United States via Panama and Mexico in 1985 and that the other three entered the next year on fake Venezuelan passports after spending several years in that South American country. The couple met later in Miami.

In addition, Ferro said, the Cubans tried to talk their way back into the country after the border incident by, at various times, claiming to be either refugees or American citizens. The Fajardos deny it, blaming any misunderstandings on their inability to grasp the precise meaning of questions put to them in English by U.S. and Canadian authorities.

“Fraud has been their middle name since they have come in (to the United States),” Ferro charged. “ . . . Their credibility with us is less than zero.”

Although the Fajardos’ misfortunes are far from typical, their case vividly underscores a problem shared by millions of illegal aliens who exist in a hazy legal netherworld where a careless or frivolous act can trigger a lifetime of repercussions.

It all began innocently enough when Bermaida asked her 12-year-old son, Yoandys, and 9-year-old daughter, Yordalis, what they wanted for Christmas. The only thing he wanted, said Yoandys, was the chance to see that mysterious substance the television weathermen kept talking about--snow.

Began Search for Snow

So, on Dec. 20, Fajardo took some time off from the boat repair business he runs, and the family headed north in their Ford Bronco truck. They stopped first in Virginia, but there was no snow. When watching TV in the motel that first night, they heard a forecast of snow for New Jersey. So that is where they headed; but again, no luck. Next stop, Rochester, N. Y. Nothing.

But, in Rochester, they discovered that they were near Niagara Falls, a scenic wonder they had heard about even in Cuba. So they drove to the falls and, bingo, snow. They checked into a motel on the New York side and went out to marvel at the fluffy white wonder on the ground as well as the beautiful view.

About dusk, Fajardo got the notion that it might be easier to see the falls from the other side of the Niagara River. So they piled back into the truck and followed a line of cars heading across the Rainbow Bridge.

Fajardo said that he paid the 50-cent toll on the American side of the bridge. But, because no one stopped him to ask any questions at the toll booth, he contends that he did not realize he was entering Canada until he reached the immigration checkpoint at the other side.

And all the Canadian guard asked him was where he lived, what he intended to do in Canada and whether he had any guns in the car. Fajardo said he knew he was not supposed to leave the United States, but it was all so casual that it hardly seemed to matter.

It mattered. By the time they reached the Canadian overlook for the falls, it was too dark to see much of anything. So they headed back. This time, there was an INS agent in a booth who wanted to see proof that they had a right to be in the United States.

Fajardo produced a Florida driver’s license, a Social Security card and a document called an I94 that authorized him to live temporarily in the United States while the INS considered a pending application for political asylum. Bermaida and the two children held no such documents because the INS had already turned down their asylum applications.

Ferro said that printed, in English, on the I94 document is a warning about leaving the country. Once Fajardo entered Canada, he effectively nullified his asylum application, Ferro said. As for the others, he said, they had no legal basis for remaining in the United States, so they had no right to return.

Sister Kathy Rimar, an immigration lawyer with Catholic Charities who has volunteered to represent the Cubans, agreed that the Fajardos may have no legal basis for returning. “All of what Mr. Ferro says may be true, but what do we do with the family?” she asked. “If they don’t bend the rules a little, what’s going to happen to these two children growing up? Are they ever going to have a country?”

New Asylum Application

Rimar said she would probably recommend that Fajardo refile his application for asylum with the United States and possibly file another with Canada. But Fajardo said he is afraid to ask the Canadians for asylum because it might jeopardize any slim chance he has of returning south.

Meanwhile, Canadian authorities say they have no idea what will become of the family once its temporary visa runs out. However, the Canadians would presumably have no better luck than the Americans in persuading Cuba to take the family back. And the Fajardos, fearing jail or other reprisals, say they will not return to the communist island.

As if they did not have enough headaches, relatives phoned from Miami the other day with the news that the Fajardos’ home had been burglarized. They are also running out of cash, even though they get a discount from the sympathetic owner of the motel they are staying in.

And, to make matters worse, they are sick of snow. “I don’t want to see the snow anymore,” Bermaida said. “I just want to go back to Florida.”

Researcher Tracy Shryer in Chicago contributed to this story.