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 News from Around the Americas | June 2006 
US Supreme Court Denies Stay of Deportation
 Garance Burke - Associated Press
| | The Supreme Court said Monday, June 5, 2006, that it will decide the extent to which public schools can use race in deciding school assignments, setting the stage for a landmark affirmative action ruling. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite) |
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a suburban Kansas City woman's request Friday to postpone her deportation, a penalty she faces because courts found she lied about her citizenship when she crossed the border illegally from Mexico years ago.
Myrna Dick, 32, is married to an American citizen, and her 19-month-old son was born in the Kansas City area. Dick, who speaks fluent English, was raised in Chihuahua, Mexico, but spent the last two decades in the United States.
Justice Samuel Alito denied the motion for a stay of deportation Friday evening, immediately following the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal's rejection of the same request, said Dick's attorney, Michael Sharma-Crawford.
While the high court still is weighing whether to rehear Dick's case, an eventual ruling in her favor still might not allow her to return to the U.S., Sharma-Crawford said.
"I'm not going to give up," Dick said in a telephone interview from San Diego, where she was preparing to leave the country Saturday, "but I just hope that people who have heard the tragedy of our lives will keep on struggling so that immigration laws benefit the many, many families who are in a situation like ours."
The case drew national attention in 2004, when Dick, then three months pregnant, was ordered to leave the country. The charge she faced — false claim to citizenship — carries a penalty of a permanent ban from the United States.
A federal judge in Missouri made the unusual decision to stave off Dick's deportation because he said her fetus essentially was an American citizen.
Earlier this week, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency's case against Dick had not changed and that the government's position was supported by numerous courts.
After the rulings, Dick said the family was preparing to drive across the border Saturday to resettle with friends in Tijuana.
"Congress doesn't care about what kind of future Zachary will have," she said. "Immigration reform won't work unless they make laws that satisfy American families, because not everyone is going to want to move to Tijuana." |
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