Orphan Boy Saved From Deportation

A Guatemalan boy facing deportation after his immigrant parents were killed crossing a street in Sherman Oaks has been taken in by a foster parent, improving his chances of staying in the United States permanently, the boy’s new guardian and county officials said on Monday.

Steve Candelario, 32, offered to become the guardian of Bryan Mendoza after reading about his plight in a newspaper.

Bryan, 14, ended up in legal limbo after his parents, whose visas had expired, were struck and killed by a truck on July 21. He is now living in Candelario’s Woodland Hills apartment with two Mexican teenage boys who were also stranded in the United States.”They get along great,” said Candelario, who works as a clerk in a law firm. “They’re like a support group among themselves.”

Officials at the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services declined to discuss the case. But Candelario, a licensed foster parent, said he was granted temporary custody of Bryan last week and expects to gain permanent custody in upcoming Juvenile Court hearings.

Immigration and Naturalization Service officials have said that Bryan could be deported because his only relative in the United States, an aunt, is also here on an expired visa. In such cases, INS officials look to the country of origin for relatives who can take custody of the child.

But the new arrangement could allow Bryan to stay in the United States because of a 1990 federal law that gives legal immigrant status to undocumented children who are orphaned or separated from their parents and are then placed in foster care, said Cecilia Saco, a county case worker.

In an interview Monday, Bryan said he was pleased with the new living situation.

“I’m still pretty sad [about my parents], but now that I’m with Steve, it’s better,” he said. “I want to stay here in the country, study a lot and learn how to be an airplane mechanic.”

Bryan flew to the United States with his parents and his aunt nine months ago on tourist visas that have since expired, Guatemalan officials said. While his parents took low-paying custodial jobs, Bryan enrolled in junior high school, began studying English and joined a local soccer team.

After Santos Mendoza, 41, and Floridalma Estrada, 38, were killed while jaywalking on a dark stretch of Riverside Drive, Bryan’s aunt, Glenda Gomez, 23, said she couldn’t afford to take care of him, Candelario said.

Now Candelario, a native New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, is welcoming the fourth member of a unique household that he said he never would have envisioned until he gained custody three years ago of a 15-year-old boy who had been abused by his mother.

Candelario said he gained custody of the second boy, who is 16, when his mother died of lupus.

With Bryan’s arrival, he said, things are getting a little crowded in the two-bedroom bachelor pad.

“We’re moving to a three-bedroom within the month,” he said.