— from Eleanor Hoague —
Orcas Issues ran an update on April 16, and nothing has changed since then. On April 29 I went by West Sound Lumber and joshed with Pete and Jack Helsell about the immediate deportation of Ben Nuñez, but it was just for amusement.
Where are we? In limbo, until we receive a response back from ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) to Nuñez’s request for a stay of deportation. They may respond that he be deported on some future date that they specify or on a certain date after the Helsell’s have found a replacement. Or they may respond by saying that they have decided not to decide (effectively to put the Nuñez case on the back burner) or they may never respond.
We would love to have a response so that Nuñez can get on with planning his life, but he truly has the most amazing attitude now. He says that really he has been in limbo since he came to the US not knowing what his future would be, and that if they deport him now he will go with a huge smile on his face, knowing what a large number of true friends he has and what a great group of people have supported him.
I think it will be we who will have the tears in our eyes. (This is NOT to imply that he wants to go back to Mexico, just to say that he really has come to realize his role in this community, and how lucky he is to have developed such meaningful relationships here.)
So we sit and wait. I guess no news is good news.
Thank you so much, Eleanor, for your updates, and to Orcas Issues for supplying the forum. Please keep us posted as to anything we can do– letters, emails, calls, donations for the legal fund? I don’t know how Nunez has managed to go through so many decades of being in “limbo”, and with such grace. I am hoping there is some way we can get him out of this “limbo” and keep him home, with us. He is family.
Ben is here with me right now, Laurel. I will make sure he gets your response. He IS family.
I am thinking it’s time to lie low.
We hear all sorts of fluff from Washington about how the Feds are pull back on immigration deportation cases, but little appears to be changing on the ground. Perhaps the fluff has more to do with trolling for votes for impending elections than really attempting to make a difference in the Hispanic community.