Rachel Chason reports for the Washington Post:
“Foster McCune will play Division I soccer at Georgetown University this fall. Matt and Ben Di Rosa, twins from the District’s Chevy Chase neighborhood, will play for the University of Maryland.
On Monday night, they stood with other members of their elite Bethesda Soccer Club outside Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Northwest Washington, protesting the arrest and pending deportation of a beloved teammate: Lizandro Claros Saravia.
Claros Saravia, 19, who had a scholarship to play college soccer in North Carolina, was detained along with his older brother, Diego, in Baltimore on Friday following one of their regular check-ins with immigration officials.
Lizandro Claros Saravia ( Courtesy of Bethesda Soccer Club )They entered the United States illegally in 2009, fleeing violence in their native El Salvador. Lizandro Claros Saravia graduated from Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg this past spring and was planning to attend the two-year Louisburg College in North Carolina on a soccer scholarship this fall.
“He’s one of the hardest-working people on our team,” Matt Di Rosa said at the protest, which drew about 50 people, including family, teammates and immigration advocates. “He has a bright future, and that’s something he actively sought.”
Diego Claros Saravia, 22, graduated from high school a few years ago and works in a car repair shop.
Neither brother has a criminal record, said Nick Katz, senior manager of legal services at the immigration advocacy organization CASA de Maryland, who is representing the pair.
They would not have been priorities for deportation under the Obama administration, according to a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But President Trump’s administration has made clear that any undocumented immigrant is vulnerable to deportation, and there has been a steady increase in the number of people detained after otherwise routine check-ins, advocates say.
The brothers, who were detained by immigration officers when they arrived in the United States, were issued final removal orders by an immigration judge in November 2012, but were released pursuant to an order of supervision, ICE spokesman Matthew Bourke said.
They were both granted a stay of removal in 2013. But their two subsequent applications for stays were denied. Since 2016, Bourke said, ICE deportation officers have instructed the brothers to purchase tickets for departure.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Katz said. “These are the kids who we want to stay.”
Fatima Claros Saravia, 25, cried as she held up a sign she had made for her brothers. “Stop separating families,” she wrote under photos of Lizandro playing soccer. “Let my brothers live their American dream.”
“They wanted to study and to work,” she said. “We are heartbroken — this is not fair, and it is not right.”
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Read the full story at the link.
This is an example of the type of “order” and “rationality” that Gen. John Kelly brought to DHS. That’s why I’m not as sanguine as some that he will bring any sense of order and decency to the gonzo crew in the West Wing.
“Dumb, divisive, and cruel” enforcement by DHS is likely to be the norm unless and until the majority of U.S. voters who don’t believe that this is the best use of taxpayer dollars rise up and put more responsible politicians in office.
PWS
08-01-17