Originally posted by Crankyshank
There's been a local public outcry about a Syrian man who came here 20yrs ago on a fake passport and has been trying to gain the right to stay here. He was deported this week unexpectedly.
Exeter pizza maker loses 20-year quest to remain in U.S.
The government's decision to place Faraj Boutros on a flight bound for Amsterdam was an unpleasant surprise for his wife and lawyer.
09:11 AM EDT on Wednesday, September 29, 2004
BY PAUL DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
Journal file photo
Faraj Boutros
Faraj Boutros, the Exeter pizza maker who used a fake passport to move his family from harm's way in the Middle East, was deported last night after a 20-year struggle to stay in America, his wife said.
In a move that surprised his family and lawyer, immigration officials placed the Syrian-born Boutros on a Boston flight to Amsterdam around 5:30 p.m. At some point he will be flown to Damascus, Syria, said his brother, Pierre. Boutros was arrested last year after he refused to leave the country. Immigration officials warned him to go several times, but the 50-year-old owner of Little Country Pizza on Route 3 said he got bad legal advice when he came to the United States and wanted his case reopened.
Boutros' wife, Vera, drove to Logan Airport yesterday but was not allowed to board a plane to see her husband, who has spent the last year in a Massachusetts prison. Instead, she handed her husband's wallet to an immigration officer, she said. The officer boarded the plane and allowed Boutros to call his wife on a cell phone while she stood with a daughter, Chantal, and Pierre.
"I didn't even say goodbye," said Vera, crying. "He said, 'I got the wallet. I love you.' "
The family was unable to bring Boutros clothes or other items. "No clothes, no nothing," Pierre said.
Reached before 5 p.m. yesterday, immigration officials would not confirm whether Boutros had been scheduled for deportation later in the day.
"We don't give out information about anybody's removal from the United States in advance," said Paula Grenier, a spokeswoman for Immigration Customs and Enforcement in Boston.
But she did say that Boutros was "under final order for removal."
His departure ends a struggle that involved U.S. senators and a series of lawyers who fought to keep the pizza maker in New England, where his four children live.
"I never thought I'd see this day. It's like a nightmare," said Pierre. "But I have faith." He said he has friends in Damascus who will meet Boutros and take him to Beirut. From there, Boutros will try to return to Rhode Island, maybe in a year, Pierre said.
Faraj Boutros came to America in 1984, after marrying Vera and starting a family in East Beirut.
His wife and children, born in Lebanon, were granted political asylum after their arrival in the United States. But Boutros, born in Syria, was not. He appealed a 1991 deportation order but lost.
But immigration officials were lax. They did not renew their efforts to deport Boutros until a few years ago.
By that time, Boutros had bought and remodeled the Little Country Pizza and purchased a home in North Kingstown.
Boutros' lawyers then asked immigration officials and judges to reopen the case.
And Vera, who became a U.S. citizen earlier this year, had hoped her status would enable her husband to stay.
Rhode Island's lawmakers also tried to help.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee asked Canada to harbor Boutros for a brief period. But officials there said Boutros would have to become a Canadian citizen and stay. Also, Boutros had no legal passport, they said.
In July, Chafee visited Boutros in the Bristol County Jail and House of Corrections in Dartmouth. Chafee discussed immigration laws with Sheriff Thomas Hodgson.
"It's been very difficult," said Boutros' lawyer, David Yavner. Efforts by Chafee and others "haven't helped," he said.
Yavner said he is worried that Boutros could be arrested by Syrian officials because Boutros left Syria at 15 and did not serve in the Syrian army.
"He could be arrested. All these terrible things could happen. We just don't know," Yavner said. "He hasn't been there in a very long time."
The youngest of seven brothers, Boutros was born in a small town in northern Syria. He quit school at 11 to run a produce stand and, at 15, left Syria for East Beirut.
A devout Christian, Boutros joined the Christian militia. He married Vera in 1975. She was still in high school.
"It was a beautiful time," he said last year. But it didn't last. Civil war broke out. The Lebanese army and the Palestinians clashed, and bombs fell on Beirut, Boutros said.
Fearing for his family's safety, Boutros doctored a passport and he and his family left for the United States, where he had relatives.
Chafee spokeswoman Debbie Rich said the senator will ask U.S. officials in Syria to urge the Syrians to treat Boutros "in a humane manner."
But family members yesterday said they received no such treatment from immigration officers.
"They told us nothing," Vera said.
Instead, Boutros asked a Bristol County inmate to call the family when officials moved him from his cell, she said.
Vera then called immigration and security officials and Yavner, who told her Boutros would be flown out of the country at 6 p.m.
"They did not call us," said Vera. "We are human. We have a right to know."
Vera, her daughter and Pierre rushed to Boston in heavy traffic and talked to immigration officials en route to Logan Airport -- "but it was too late," Vera said.
She handed her husband's wallet to an immigration officer. And then, after a phone call, her husband was gone.
My husband and I were hit last year by a drunk, uninsured driver on a suspended license. She got away with a slap on the wrist because she is collecting disability- her license is suspended for an additional 3 months per accident and only has to pay $25/month for my accident, for the other person she hit, and the people she hit last year. Guess what? I still see her driving around town and the thought that the state is going to allow her to continue driving makes me furious.
