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Saugerties restaurant owners face deportation

Nov 28, 2010 11:05 am
SAUGERTIES - Patricia Doxsey has a great story in today's Kingston Daily Freeman about a case that has Saugerties restaurants, and fans of its Tango restaurant right at the village's center, on the edge of their seats. It involves siblings Analia and Emilio Maya, who are under threat of deportation despite her marriage to a former village policeman, with whom she has had a child, and the help of their adopted home town's congressman, Rep. Maurice Hinchey.

"The Llife the two had created for themselves in America came crashing down on Nov. 17, 2009, when armed immigration officers arrested Emilio Maya for an 'immigration violation' and hauled him off to a jail in Pennsylvania to await deportation. Immigration officials also served Analia with a notice to appear in federal court to face a deportation hearing," Doxsey writes. "Now facing a Feb. 11, 2011, deportation date, Emilio is pinning his hopes on public support and congressional intervention to allow him to stay in this country. Analia, meanwhile, has an appointment this week with immigration officials. After an interview, the officials will decide whether her marriage is legitimate or a scheme designed to secure U.S. citizenship."

The Mayas’ saga began in 1998, when they entered the United States from Argentina under a program that allowed them to stay in the country for 90 days without a visa. But the two remained beyond the 90-day limit, living and working here illegally... and eventually bringing their parents over to help start their popular eatery, first in West Saugerties and then in the center of town, where the whole family has become extremely popular.

A documentary about the two, and how they worked with federal authories as informants in exchange for staying in the U.S., is scheduled to air on the Discovery Channel in December, and Emilio said he is scheduled to give interviews to other news organizations in the days after that documentary airs.

Hinchey introduced a bill to grant the two permanent resident status but it has not moved from a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, and now appears to be dead, given the House's pending change from Democratic to Republican hands.

For the full story, which speaks to the complications of immigration in our country these days, click HERE.