Durangoans Sonia Belouniss and David Wyatt face having their lives turned upside down, apparently because she has a loud voice and a short fuse. That and she missed the deadline for filing a form by 22 days.
The punishment hardly seems to fit the crime. What it does, however, is highlight the contradictions and craziness within U.S. immigration policy – and demonstrate what countless families across the nation fear daily.
The couple moved to Durango in 2013 and were married. Belouniss is French and had been living in the United States under the 90-day visa waiver program. At the end of that period, she was supposed to reapply or apply for permanent-resident status. She missed that deadline, and her presence here became illegal.
In January 2014, Belouniss and her husband got into an argument at their Durango home. No blows were struck, but the police showed up, and she was arrested. It is unclear exactly why she was run in for a nonviolent dispute, and the District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges the next day, but her immigration status was revealed.
She ended up spending almost a month behind bars – here, in Colorado Springs and in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Denver. After that, the Department of Homeland Security stayed her deportation for a year.
ICE denied an extension of that stay last month. An official wrote that Belouniss had “abused the visa-waiver program” by failing to act within the 90-day limit.
Busting her for missing the deadline is fair. But given that she has apparently followed the rules in every other way, why not warn her, fine her and call it good? In this country, people are not executed for misdemeanors. (And given how quickly the charges were dropped, the fight that got her arrested seems to have been a non-event.)
Except for the deadline misstep, Belouniss acted the way critics say immigrants are supposed to behave. She came here legally and has made an above-board life for herself. In contrast to most immigrants here illegally, there was no intent to circumvent the law.
But what if her skin were darker? What if she worked as a maid instead of as a nurse? What if her earlier life had been as just another poor kid instead of a ski racer? Would she be seen as sympathetic?
Those are questions to consider, but so too is the reverse: Would she be deported if she had snuck across the border, taken a low-paying job and kept her head down? There are millions of immigrants in this country illegally who have avoided deportation pretty much like that.
Belouniss erred in missing the deadline, but her trying to follow the law is how the authorities knew about her. Is that unfair or just ironic? And what kind of example does that set for anyone considering trying the legal route?
Even worse is the official language in her case, which refers to ICE having “unreviewable discretion” and specifically says Belouniss “may not file an appeal or motion to reopen/reconsider this decision.” And so long as ICE considers her a visa-waiver violator, she cannot so much as apply to become a U.S. citizen.
With that, her American husband could have to choose between leaving his country or living without his wife. And he is not so much as accused of anything.
The Obama administration has said it wants to focus on deporting “felons, not families.” Allowing bureaucrats to think they have “unreviewable discretion” is not the answer.
