Saturday, January 22, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Two LV teens face deportation

Residency troubles traced to dad's divorce

Rouben Sarkisian and his three U.S.-born children -- Michelle, 13, left; Elizabeth, 12; and Patricia, 10 -- await word from Sarkisian's two oldest daughters, who are incarcerated in Los Angeles and facing deportation to Armenia. The photos on the table show Palo Verde High School student Mariam Sarkisian, left, and Palo Verde graduate Emma Sarkisian. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

The nation of their birth no longer exists, and the country they claim as their own is trying to deport them.

Trapped in a bureaucratic tangle of immigration law, documentation confusion and ongoing legal challenges regarding their residency status, two teenage sisters from Las Vegas now find themselves jailed in Los Angeles.

They fear that every approaching footstep heralds a forced plane trip to the Republic of Armenia, a one-way journey that will take them away from their father, their three other sisters and the only way of life they've ever known.

"My children are not criminals," Rouben Sarkisian said through an interpreter Friday. "They didn't kill anyone. They're just children."

Sarkisian is a legal resident of the United States who operates the Tropicana Pizza at 2560 Wigwam Parkway in Henderson.

His limited English lapsed into a stream of emotional Russian as he voiced his most pressing question about the fate of his two oldest daughters.

The teens were born in Armenia, at the time a Soviet republic, and raised for a short while in then-Soviet Ukraine. Sarkisian brought them to the United States when he emigrated in 1991 to avoid growing nationalistic hostility aimed at those with non-Ukrainian ancestry. All three were citizens of the former Soviet Union, which collapsed shortly after the family departed.

"How can this happen in America, a country that always gives people from other countries a chance to join them?" Sarkisian asked, burying his head in his hands.

Emma Sarkisian, 18, and Mariam Sarkisian, 17, his two oldest daughters, haven't been allowed to shower in four days.

They spend most of their waking time in a cell, surrounded by others awaiting deportation. Some wear jail uniforms and handcuffs. The sisters try to stay away from them. At night, they're taken to a detention hotel and locked in a room with two strangers from Sri Lanka.

That's been their reality since Jan. 14, said Emma Sarkisian, the day after they were arrested by officials of the Office of Homeland Security at a Clark County immigration office and separated from their family.

"I want to come home," Emma Sarkisian said on Friday, during one of the calls she makes to her father when she can obtain a 12-minute phone card. "I can't believe this is happening."

Emma Sarkisian graduated from Palo Verde High School last year and helps her father manage the pizza parlor. Mariam Sarkisian is a senior at Palo Verde and is missing her final exams. Both girls and their father believed they were legal residents of the United States, until an ill-fated trip to the immigration office in July.

Emma Sarkisian, newly graduated, wanted to obtain a driver's license and enroll in college. Officials at the Department of Motor Vehicles asked for documentation of her status. That's when immigration officials told Rouben Sarkisian his daughters were under a deportation order.

He couldn't believe it, especially since he has copies of letters the U.S. Department of Justice sent to both daughters in 1997 titled: "Notice of Approval of Relative Immigrant Visa Petition."

At the time of those applications, Rouben Sarkisian was married to an American citizen, whom he later divorced. Immigration officials told him that because of that, the acceptances for his daughters no longer were valid.

Rouben Sarkisian said he was never informed of that. When he obtained legal counsel, he was told the best course of action was to become a U.S. citizen. With citizenship, he can act as a sponsor for his daughters, but the deportation proceedings now are outpacing the naturalization process.

Attorney Jeremiah Wolf Stuchiner is shocked by the measures taken against the girls and the refusal of immigration officials to use discretion in working with children who have guaranteed sponsorship once the father is naturalized. The children are not a flight risk and are not a burden on the system, Stuchiner said.

The attorney, who successfully intervened on Monday when the girls were being put on a plane to Armenia, is seeking an order of release from a federal magistrate. The proceeding began Friday and will continue on Monday.

"What is the purpose of holding them in a detention cell if this is going to be protracted?" Stuchiner said. "We don't even know where they are. They're in a detention hotel, but they haven't even told us where."

The treatment his daughters have received so far reminds Sarkisian more of the land he left behind than the one he chose to come to because of its freedoms.

After both daughters were taken into custody, they were told to sign papers if they wanted to see their father before they were taken to Los Angeles. Emma Sarkisian said she wasn't even given a chance to read them.

"I don't know what I signed," she said. "I just did it. I was so shocked by the whole thing and I was crying. I just wanted to see my father."

Wendy Young, a director for the New York-based activist group Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, said that kind of intimidation tactic is commonly used when trying to obtain signatures on voluntary orders of deportation. It comes with the zero-tolerance attitude that's cropped up in dealing with illegal immigrants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"That opened the door to all of our strongest law enforcement instincts," Young said.

Minors who have contested or illegal status such as the Sarkisian sisters increase in number each year, Young said.

In 2003, 5,000 were in legal custody while their cases were heard. That increased to 6,200 in 2004, Young said. There are provisions in the law governing the treatment of minors by immigration officials, but oftentimes, they are not followed, Young said.

"This isn't as uncommon as people think," Young said, adding that the majority of minors in federal detention have no one to speak for them or represent them.

The co-director of the immigration law clinic at UNLV's Boyd Law School said Mariam Sarkisian, who is 17, possesses additional rights because she is a minor. Under the law, minors facing deportation who do not pose a flight risk are to be released into the custody of their parents "without unnecessary delay."

"Under their own regulations, (immigration officials) should have released her into the custody of her father," UNLV associate law professor David Thronson said.

Calls made Friday to Frank Galvan, the Department of Homeland Security officer in charge of deportation proceedings in Las Vegas, were not returned.