Man Ruled Too Americanized to Deport

On the face of it, Orlando Ordonez, a 24-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant who lives in Bell Gardens, should be deported by now.

Denied political asylum after the civil war in his homeland ended, Ordonez had no family ties in the United States that would constitute a hardship if he were sent back to Nicaragua, even though he has lived in the Los Angeles area since 1985. That’s how an immigration judge saw it when he ordered Ordonez to leave.

But now the Board of Immigration Appeals has overruled the judge and issued a precedent-setting decision allowing Ordonez to remain because he is, in effect, too Americanized to return to Nicaragua without facing great hardship, personally and economically. On Thursday, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service issued documentation that will eventually lead to a green card to an ecstatic Ordonez, a truck driver.

“He is fully assimilated into American culture and society,” wrote the five-member immigration panel, which noted that Ordonez speaks English, is a law-abiding churchgoer and “a baseball enthusiast who attends many games each year,” and graduated from junior high and high schools in Southern California. “This assimilation makes the prospect of readjustment to life in Nicaragua much harder than would ordinarily be the case.”

In addition, the panel noted the bleak economic prospects that Ordonez would likely face in Nicaragua, with its stagnant economy and continued political instability.

While stressing that each deportation case is distinct, immigration attorneys said the board’s strong language provides potent new ammunition for many longtime residents seeking to avoid deportation. The timing is especially important, lawyers noted, because thousands of Nicaraguans, Salvadorans and others who have been in the United States for years may soon be requesting similar relief--”suspension of deportation,” as it is known. Many Central Americans are facing termination of temporary legal status.

“This doesn’t open the floodgates, but it’s a good sign because it adds to the arguments in a particular case,” noted Linton Joaquin, litigation director with the National Immigration Law Center, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit group that serves as an advocate on behalf of immigrants.

But others criticized the decision--along with recent government guidelines extending political asylum to persecuted gays, women and others--as wrongly expanding the right to reside here to myriad groups of foreigners with marginal claims.

“In general, if you get into this country it’s getting increasingly difficult to remove you--even if you came here illegally,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that favors reduced levels of immigration. “People know that if they get in, they’re going to be able to stay--and that itself is an incentive to illegal immigration.”

What is distinct about the ruling, experts said, is that the panel agreed to block Ordonez’s deportation even though his U.S. family ties--usually a critical consideration in such cases--were weak. Though he now has a 4-month-old child who is a U.S. citizen, Ordonez, who is unmarried, had no children when the matter was considered; his mother and brother were back in Central America and his father had died.

Nonetheless, the board ruled that “when an alien has strongly embraced and deeply immersed himself in the social and cultural life of the United States . . . the emotional and psychological impact of readjustment must be considered in assessing hardship.”

The written rulings of the board, based in Falls Church, Va., serve as precedents for immigration judges deciding deportation and other cases. Immigration judges have the authority to suspend the deportations of people who have been in the United States for at least seven years, are of good moral character, and would suffer “extreme hardship” if expelled.

U.S. authorities disagree with the panel’s reasoning but do not intend to appeal to the federal courts, said Richard K. Rogers, the INS district director in Los Angeles.

Indicating a sharp split in the 12-person board, four members who did not participate in the decision wrote dissenting opinions on the Ordonez ruling, which was issued June 14.

The dissenters criticized the panel for breaking with decades of tradition in which “extreme hardship” for potential deportees was interpreted narrowly. The four called Ordonez’s community ties “ordinary,” and said the economic hardship he faced if deported was “unnoteworthy” compared to that encountered by many others.

Even the five-member panel that ruled in Ordonez’s favor agreed that it was a “close case,” but one which ultimately merited suspending the Nicaraguan’s deportation.

On Thursday, Ordonez and his attorney, Gloria M. Curiel of Santa Monica, made no effort to conceal their enthusiasm as Ordonez awaited his turn in a drab INS waiting room in downtown Los Angeles. Ordonez was accompanied by his fiancee and the couple’s infant son.

A strapping six-footer, Ordonez works out regularly at neighborhood gyms and plays club baseball and softball in Los Angeles. He would like to be a police officer or a fireman, the latter his late father’s occupation in Nicaragua.

“This is a dream come true,” Ordonez said in good English after he completed signing paperwork for his residency papers. “I don’t know how to explain it. I’m like a new guy.”

He has certainly come a long way since November 1985, when, as a frightened teenager, he sneaked across the U.S.-Mexico border from Tijuana with a small group in broad daylight. The group made it to Los Angeles the same day, reflecting how much easier it was to cross clandestinely before the huge enforcement buildups of recent years. His father had come north a few months earlier.

Like so many other Central Americans, the family filed for political asylum and received temporary legal permission to remain in the United States while the application was adjudicated. But, with the civil war in Nicaragua over, Ordonez’s asylum request was rejected, setting in motion the series of legal maneuvers that eventually resulted in the favorable ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals.