INS Relents, Will Let Boy Come See His Dying Mother : Immigration: U.S. had refused to bend rule to fulfill deathbed wish in allowing 9-year-old to visit from El Salvador.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service decided Thurday to grant the deathbed wish of a young woman who asked to be reunited with her 9-year-old son, who has been unable to leave El Salvador because of visa problems.

Three weeks after the State Department denied an emotional plea from the woman’s husband for a visa for Walter Siguenza, the INS said it would grant a “humanitarian parole” that will allow the boy to come into the country temporarily, officials said.

The INS order came after Sen. Pete Wilson (R.-Calif.) intervened on behalf of Israel Siguenza, who has been trying for weeks to grant his wife Sonia’s last wish.

Sonia Siguenza, 25, is suffering from an infectious blood disease and has been in and out of a coma for three weeks. Her doctor and her husband say she has known for some time that she was dying and told them that she wanted one last visit with her son, who was sent to live with her parents in El Salvador last year when she became ill.

“I’m so excited,” Israel Siguenza said minutes after he was told Walter would be allowed to come here after all. “This is going to help her a lot. I think she will know that he’s there. . . . I think when she sees the boy, she will wake up.”

On Thursday, INS officials in Washington cabled word to the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador to allow Walter to board a plane to the United States, said Franz Wisner, Wilson’s deputy press secretary. The boy’s father said Walter may arrive in Los Angeles late Friday night and could see his mother as early as Saturday morning.

Wisner said the senator was moved to act on this case.

“He’s ecstatic about this,” Wisner said. “This is what government is all about. When you can pinpoint it to something as personal as this--government working for an individual--it makes the whole system seem worthwhile.”

Siguenza, a car salesman who lives in Santa Ana with the couple’s other child, 21-month-old Sissy, had been growing more discouraged every day as he watched his wife’s condition worsen.

Earlier this month, he traveled to El Salvador to personally appeal to officials at the U.S. Embassy there, who would have to grant the visa for young Walter.

But he was told that in order to grant a non-immigrant visa, Siguenza had the burden of proving that the boy, who was born in El Salvador, would not stay in the United States. Immigration officials said that if Siguenza were a U.S. citizen, his son could join him with no problem. But Siguenza is a legal resident--not a citizen--so his son must await his turn before his petition for residency is approved.

After he returned to Orange County without his son, Siguenza and his wife’s doctor, Michael Fitzgibbons of Irvine, asked Wilson to help.

Wilson wrote to officials at the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador but was also told there were not enough assurances that Walter would return to El Salvador. Finally, Wilson wrote personally to INS Commissioner Gene McNary in Washington in a letter sent this week.

“Sonia Siguenza is dying,” Wilson wrote. “I cannot overstate my strong belief that this request for parole be expedited so that Sonia’s final wish--to be with her family during these final days--can come true.”

After conversations and negotiations between State Department and INS officials, the parole was granted on Thursday.

Carol Beara, a spokeswoman for the INS in Laguna Niguel, said the humanitarian parole is “something that the Immigration Service grants on a case-by-case basis. It temporarily permits someone to enter and reside in the U.S. with the understanding that that person will return to his native country.”

She said that because of immigration quotas set by Congress, there is a long waiting period for people applying to migrate to the United States even if, as in Walter’s case, his father is a legal permanent resident.

For a Salvadoran, the wait is about 2 1/2 years, she said. It could be worse, she said. For an applicant from the Philippines, the wait is eight years, while it is 12 years for someone from Mexico.

“It’s sad circumstances, but at least the son will get to see his mother one last time,” Beara said.

On Thursday, Siguenza was busily trying to get in touch with his wife’s parents in the Salvadoran town of Santa Ana, just outside of the capital city of San Salvador, to get the boy on a plane today. He was too busy to give much thought to whether his wife would be fully cognizant that her son is at last going to be by her side.

“Last night when I went to see my wife she was still in a coma,” he said. “She doesn’t wake up, she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t do anything.”

“But doctors think that her son is the only reason she is still fighting to stay alive,” he said. “I’m very happy he’s coming. I will be so happy to get him here.”