Activism works! Victory in Boston! Thank you, Senator Kerry!

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/03/04/justice_for_an_immigrant/

Justice for an immigrant
March 4, 2005

IN THE post-Sept. 11 world, immigration officials are understandably reluctant to give a break to foreigners living in this country who have broken any immigration rules. But officials in Washington have wisely seen that an Ivory Coast citizen who has been teaching in the Boston schools for 10 years deserves such a break. Obain Attouoman, who was facing a deportation order today, has been granted at least a reprieve and will be able to return to work as a special-education teacher at Fenway High School.

Yesterday, Senator John Kerry took the unusual step of introducing a private bill on Attouoman’s behalf to stop his deportation. If the bill prompts Senator John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration, to take action on his case with the Department of Homeland Security, Attouoman will be able to stay in the United States. Such action by a subcommittee chairman is customary but not guaranteed.

The 42-year-old Everett resident has sought asylum based on the persecution he suffered in Ivory Coast for union and political activities. While his case at least temporarily has reached a happier turn, it demonstrates shortcomings in an immigration system that too often sends hard-working immigrants back to uncertain fates in their homelands.

While Kerry’s bill awaits action, Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security, postponed Attouoman’s deportation at least a week in response to appeals from Mayor Menino, Governor Romney, Senators Kerry and Kennedy, and other elected officials. Representative Edward Markey, who has already filed a private bill for Attouoman, will do so again. Some of Attouoman’s most persuasive advocates have been his own students, who first demonstrated for him in Boston and then traveled to Washington this week to plead his case.

Attouoman, who was once arrested in Ivory Coast for his political activities, sought asylum in the United States in the 1990s. He ran afoul of immigration officials in 2001 when he says he misread the handwritten date for a hearing on his case before an immigration judge. He was supposed to appear on June 7, not July 7, as he thought. That error dogs him to this day.

In a letter to Chertoff asking for the deportation to be stopped, Senators Kerry, Kennedy, and Carl Levin of Michigan said that Attouoman ‘‘has had a profound influence on hundreds of students who view him as an educator and a role model.’’ As soon as Kerry and other officials in Washington successfully resolve Attouoman’s case, they should closely review immigration procedures that came so close to costing Boston the services of this dedicated young educator.